Merit Network, Inc.

Up in Michigan there's a piece of NSFnet history working hard for universities in ways that might benefit commercial ISPs.

by Gerry Blackwell [June 26, 2007]

Now that the internet is a global mega-industry, routinely creating billionaires, most of us have forgotten—if we ever knew about—its early origins as a vehicle for collaboration and cooperation in education and research. Also forgotten is the brief idyll of partnership between public not-for-profit players and the industry's private sector pioneers.

But Merit Network Inc., a non-profit broadband network operator owned by 12 public universities in Michigan, has kept the faith—at least in some ways. While it no longer provides direct services to commercial ISPs, except a couple of hold-overs from the earlier era of public-private partnership, Merit remains a resource from which commercial ISPs can and do benefit.

It recently coordinated development of an open source software solution that ISPs can use to fulfill their requirements under the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA), for example. In fact, public and private-sector ISPs worked together on the OpenCALEA project.

Merit is also making its unique 3D network traffic visualization software, Flamingo, available to anyone who wants to trial it—until it finds a buyer for the technology. And commercial ISPs are welcome to participate in the workshops the company periodically organizes for members and affiliates, such as the recent event focused on IPTV in Education.

A noble purpose
Merit was formed in 1966 to build a computer network linking four Michigan universities. It now covers the entire state. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the company also managed NSFNet, a cross-country network built by the National Science Foundation (NSF), originally to link five university supercomputing sites. NSFNet was one of the precursors of the internet.

The company has a philosophy somewhat different from typical private sector counterparts. "We're focused on building community and encouraging knowledge transfer," says president and CEO Don Welch. "It's very important that members have the opportunity to collaborate and learn from each other. That's what is unique about us."

Today the community of member-owners—still all universities and institutes of higher learning in Michigan—has grown to 12. But Merit directly connects 258 member and affiliate member organizations, and indirectly connects another almost 200 affiliates of affiliates. They range from universities and colleges, to public health care and research facilities, to libraries, school districts and consortia of school districts.

Working with commercial companies
Merit does connect directly to some private sector organizations, if they provide services to its members. It connects to ProQuest, for example, an online publisher of academic research. It connects to Akamai, the web caching company. And it connects to Ruckus, a free music service aimed at students. Including such vendors in the network saves members money and provides better, faster network services—and incidentally provides little benefit to the companies.

"Generally speaking, we partner with for-profit or non-profit organizations if it benefits our community," Welch explains. "If it's just an issue of somebody trying to get a financial advantage when selling to our community, we typically won't go for it."

A nifty network
The network, a mix of owned and leased fiber and other facilities, including wireless links, stretches thousands of miles around the state, much of it providing multiple 10 Gbps channels. The company's objective is to move eventually to an all-owned network, mostly fiber, with some wireless.

Merit actually has two missions. One is to facilitate research by providing high-speed networking services to its members. The other is to foster advances in networking technology and processes. To the latter end, it maintains a research and development operation with, as Welch says, "a unique combination of engineers and network operators, all really interested in pushing the state of the art of networking."

Go to page two: CALEA and other applications