The University is now part of a computer network so blazingly fast, it could make DSL feel like the telegraph.
This month, Penn's MAGPI regional high-speed Internet gateway was connected to a private high-speed nationwide network called the Internet2 Network.
Penn is currently connected to other universities, high schools and non-profit organizations through the Abilene network, but the switch will make that connection 10 times faster.
The new speed is enough to theoretically transfer three DVDs of material per second.
But the real goal of the network isn't to help students bolster their movie collection.
Instead, the goal is to make it easier to conduct research on technologies such as tele-immersion, in which objects or people can be virtually displayed in another location.
For Computer Science professor Kostas Daniilidis's research on tele-immersion, Internet2 is essential.
Before, "we always remarked at the network as an excuse," he said. "Now there is no excuse from the network side, and all the responsibility is on the computer side, which is us."
Tele-immersion has some exciting potential applications, if there is enough bandwidth available, Daniilidis added.
"Twenty-four hours a day, you will be able to see from a wall in your dorm room what is happening in your living room at home," he said. "Before Internet2, if all 20,000 students of Penn were trying to do this, the network would break. Now, it will not break."
The Wharton School also needs a high-bandwidth connection to link its Wharton West and Philadelphia campuses in video conferences.
"We don't just use it for one-way video - you can interact" across it, Wharton Information Technology Director Deirdre Woods said.
So, when a high-profile corporate speaker visits Wharton West, the school's executive-education campus in California, Wharton students in Philadelphia can video-conference in and ask questions.
The network will only have a noticeable effect when doing things that take an extremely large amount of bandwith, so students won't be able to realize the difference in their everyday browsing.
But that doesn't stop students from getting excited about the addition
"It lets us raise the bar on what the Internet can do," said Wharton and Engineering sophomore Jonathan Coveney, who majors in Computer Science.
