Senate approves funding to develop high-speed network

Last month, the U.S. Senate unanimously approved legislation to create a national high-speed computer network and to nearly double federal funding for high performance computing research and development.

The “High Performance Computing and National Research and Education Network Act of 1991,” coordinated by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, will provide approximately $1 billion over five years to develop the network, dubbed the NREN, and to support other research and development in high-performance computing.

A million computers. The program includes hardware, software, networking, education and basic research. It will link more than a million computers at more than a thousand locations in all 50 states.

Members of the House of Representatives and Senate will now meet in Conference Committee to resolve minor differences between the House and Senate versions of the bill. That committee report will then be sent to both House and Senate for approval.

After final approval, several federal agencies will receive funding to develop the network, including the National Science Foundation, the National Institute for Standards and Technology, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the Environmental Protection Agency and the National Institutes of Health. Other direct beneficiaries of the program will include the Library of Congress, the U.S. Geological Survey and the Department of Agriculture.

AVOIDING ELITISM

The Act’s passage. Albert Gore, the Democratic senator from Tennessee, gets most of the credit for the bill’s passage. A long-term and vocal proponent of a coordinated federal research plan to develop such a network and accelerate the application of high-performance computing, Gore is convinced the NREN will help U.S. industry regain its competitiveness in the global market.

Though widely acknowledged as a good idea, the NREN has also been a cause for concern among some members of the telecommunications community. Despite its vast potential to build a new communications infrastructure in the U.S., as important to the Information Age as highways and railroads were to the Industrial Revolution, they fear that the NREN might remain a haven for an elite group of scientists and researchers. They want the network to serve as a starting point to build a high-speed national public network that will jump-start a new industry based on consumer telecommunication services. (See the following story.)

Complete text of the act is available from Sen. Gore’s office, (202) 224-4944.

Denise Caruso