Connecting to the Internet from Columbia University's network is now three times faster than before, making access through Columbia's network among the fastest in the Ivy League.

The new service will accommodate increased Internet connection speeds that are now possible because of Columbia's recent network upgrades in almost all University buildings.

"We made this change to stay ahead of the demand curve," said Vace Kundakci, deputy vice president for Academic Information Systems. "We could have survived the way things were for another 6 months, but this new system will ensure good performance for the future through fast and reliable connection to the commodity Internet."

"The old connection was a fairly respectable 45 megabit per second link," said Alan Crosswell, director of network and computer systems. "But the new connection at 155 megabits per second will make everything from accessing websites to downloading files much, much faster."

Columbia's need for increased Internet speed was clear when, within seconds of switching to the new system, the outbound Internet access lept from 45 to 100 Mbps. "We had a latent demand," said Crosswell. "Now we are running at close to double the speed and still have room to grow."

The new Internet connection speed is so fast that it rivals Columbia's 155 Mbps connection to Internet 2, a congestion-free pipeline shared by 165 member research institutions and universities, which enables the speedy transfer of large amounts of data, including video, video conferencing and on-line texts with multi-media and digital images and real time interaction with remote resources.

Although transfer to the new system was as easy as flipping a switch, preparation for that moment was a very expensive and lengthy proposition that involved months of trenching streets and running miles of fiber to Columbia from downtown.

The cost for access is shared by the New York State Education Network (NYSERnet), a non-profit organization affiliated with Columbia that provides next-generation Internet services to support the goals of education and research organizations in New York State. NYSERnet offered substantial subsidies for the service largely because of Columbia's ongoing contributions to NYSERnet, both in technological support and governance. NYSERnet provides service to 15 New York State founding member institutions, including NYU, the SUNY campuses, Syracuse, Cornell, New York Public Library as well as many others.