MichNet NSF grant request

[Jeff.Ogden]

As I think all of you know Merit received informal word from
the NSF that our request for funds to upgrade the MichNet
backbone had been reviewed and would be funded with some funds
coming in the current federal fiscal year. Since that fiscal
year ends next Monday Eric Aupperle called NSF to see what the
status of things was. He learned (again informally) that we
could expect funding, that it would likely come out of FY90-91
funds, but that the size and timing of the grant were still
unknown and we might not get a firm answer for some time yet.
 
This is both good and bad news. It is nice to know that we can
expect NSF funds, but it would be better if we could get this
confirmed so we could get on with the upgrade.
 
While we wait we will continue with the upgrade of the speed of
some of our links as we have been doing recently. T1s for Ann
Arbor to Kalamazoo and Detroit to Oakland are underway. We are
making plans to move forward with an upgrade on the Grand
Rapids to East Lansing link from 9.6K to 56K and will start on
plans to upgrade the link to Saginaw to be 56K. Other links we
might consider upgrading even before word from NSF could
include a 2nd 56K link from Ann Arbor to Michigan Tech and T1s
between Ann Arbor and Flint and/or Oakland and Flint. Comments
on this are welcome.
 
We will also keep our fingers crossed and hope that final word
from NSF comes soon.
 
  -Jeff Ogden
   Merit/MichNet
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