NIU will announce a plan today to establish a connection with a 175-mile fiber-optic network that will be used for research and increased Internet availability in northern Illinois.

Cable will be laid by or leased to NIU for the purpose of accessing research materials. Increased Internet access will help draw businesses to the area, said Dan Halverson, president of the Sycamore-based Internet provider TBC Net.

NIU is sharing the costs of the $1.5 million project with TBC Net and cities in the area. NIU is partly funding the installation of cable to the network running along Interstate 88 in order to increase the speed researchers can access information from FermiLab in Batavia. Graduate students will not have to physically go to a research database because everything will be available through NIUNet, Magara said.

Halverson said TBC joined to bring increased broadband access to the NIU community.

The network will connect to other regional research networks throughout the United States.

The “NIUNet” will be used for researching through an ultrafast network called Internet2 and should be completed within three years.

Internet2 is an ultra-fast network only top research universities can use. Internet2 is not commercialized and only uses fiber optics – which makes it much faster than other Internet connections.

Cable modems can be used to download a movie-length DVD in about eight or nine hours, Halverson said.

“For the new NIUNet, you can be looking at about seven seconds,” Halverson said.

E-mails that are too big for the regular Internet are easily accessible through Internet2.

“We’re basically working with the university to share the costs,” Halverson said. “The cost for the university and the cost for us is not a perfect split down the middle.”

The funding for this project will come from ITS, state grants and other cost-sharing contributors, such as municipalities.

Students will not have to pay for the installation of the network, said Melanie Magara, assistant vice president for Public Affairs.

“We’re making something possible that could not happen without a research facility,” she said.

Internet2 is limited to research facilities. Currently, there are only 206 research universities that are members of it. Internet2 is intended for research, Magara said.

Halverson said the network will run in a loop from Rockfalls to Naperville, then to Rockford, and back to Naperville. Most of the cables are already in the ground.

Additionally, other cities that will be along the loop will contribute to the cost of the installation.

Local cities, businesses, hospitals and other schools will be able to use the fiber network once it is completed.