SEATTLE, WA -- The Pacific Northwest Gigapop has expanded and renamed its regional peering service, formerly called Seattle-Network-to-Network Access Point, or SNNAP. The expanded peering services will now be offered under the name Pacific Wave. Pacific Wave will continue to include peering services for entities within the Pacific Northwest, but has expanded its offering to include research and education networks from throughout the Pacific Rim and beyond. "The Pacific Northwest Gigapop was established in part to support state-of-the-art networking infrastructure that would unite researchers and educators in the Internet2 effort. The Pacific Wave service extends this mission to entities beyond the United States by providing a convenient, cost-effective, peering service," said Ron Johnson, Vice President and Vice Provost of the University of Washington. (The University of Washington is the founder of the Pacific Northwest Gigapop.) "When looking at the Pacific Wave service, AARNet (Australian Academic & Research Network) recognized a desirable congruence of an easily-accessible carrier-class facility near the western U.S. coast, high-bandwidth peering access to the Internet2 Abilene network, as well as access to several U.S. Federal networks and the Canadian research and education network, CANet*3. In addition, the peering infrastructure will support our multicast needs and enable us to more efficiently stream media between Australia and our peering partners," said George McLaughlin Executive Director of AARNET. "We are pleased that Pacific Wave is offering an effective option for research and education networks around the Pacific Rim to connect to members of the Internet2 community in the United States and beyond," said Heather Boyles, director of international relations for Internet2. "Pacific Wave is yet another example of how Internet2 member institutions are making important contributions to the rest of the Internet2 membership by facilitating high performance international connectivity with research and education institutions around the world." Pacific Wave looks forward to the addition of two more Pacific Rim research and education networks in the next few weeks. In addition to those already mentioned, other peering partners of Pacific Wave include Energy Sciences Network (ESNet), Defense and Research Engineering Network (DREN), CANet*3, Microsoft Corporation, and AT&T @Home.