Qwest to Provide Connectivity for Dept. of Energy

Qwest Communications was awarded a new contract to significantly expand network connectivity for several U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) sites in support of the Energy Sciences Network (ESnet) run by the DOE's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. The five-year, multimillion-dollar contract continues Qwest's relationship with ESnet, which began in 1999.


Under the contract, Qwest will create a cost-effective, fully managed metropolitan area network that will be large enough to support the vast amount of data generated by DOE researchers. The network will be 20 Gbps initially with the capability to expand to over 100 Gbps.


ESnet, supported by Qwest, connects research facilities located in the San Francisco Bay Area. The sites include the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center at Stanford University in Menlo Park; the Joint Genome Institute in Walnut Creek; the Lawrence Livermore and Sandia National Laboratories in Livermore; the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in Berkeley; the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center in Oakland; and two hubs in Sunnyvale.


Qwest already provides access and backbone services for the DOE ESnet, also managed by the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. ESnet operates a multi-gigabit backbone network connecting more than 40 DOE research sites around the country. http://www.qwest.com