FiberCo, a fiber holding company supporting U.S. research and higher education, announced that Indiana University has become the first assignee of FiberCo optical networking assets through the acquisition of a pair of dark fiber between Indianapolis, Ind. and Chicago, Ill. Internet2, a consortium of 205 universities working with government and industry to develop and deploy advanced networking technologies, established FiberCo last year to provide a means for acquiring, holding, and assigning dark fiber assets on both the national and the regional scales and on behalf of the higher education community. Indiana University intends to use this dark fiber pair to light two 10 Gigabit-per-second (Gbps) circuits to connect the IP-Grid, a collaboration between Indiana University and Purdue University, to the National Science Foundation-supported Extensible Terascale Facility (ETF) in Chicago. The fiber also will support the universities' connection to the new National LambdaRail facility and ultimately other connection services to Chicago. In addition, the assigned fiber will enable additional Chicago-based peering connections for the two Indiana research institutions. "FiberCo is helping our institutions reach goals in support of continued excellence in research, teaching, outreach and lifelong learning," said Michael McRobbie, vice president for Information Technology and CIO and vice president of Research for Indiana University. "The fiber will guarantee our researchers, faculty and students better access to advanced networking technologies and collaboration." Indiana University has obtained the dark fiber from FiberCo under an assignment agreement finalized earlier this month. This effort builds on the existing I-Light project, which has connected the core Indiana and Purdue research campuses via dark fiber using a hub in Indianapolis. "We're pleased to recognize Indiana University as the first FiberCo assignee in light of Indiana's now well established commitment to advanced networking leadership within the research and higher education community," said Steve Corbato, director of backbone network infrastructure for Internet2 and the organizational lead for FiberCo. "The rapid progress made in concluding this initial agreement gives us confidence that future assignments will proceed as smoothly as this one, thus aiding our goal of aiding the deployment of regional optical networks around the country." Under an agreement with Level 3 Communications, Inc. (NASDAQ:LVLT), FiberCo has the ability to provision both from an initial allocation of over 2,600 route miles and from future acquisitions of dark fiber on Level 3's national footprint. FiberCo's nationally aggregated approach enabled streamlined agreements and lower costs for acquiring the fiber as well as for ongoing costs of fiber maintenance and equipment co-location. "Through FiberCo, Level 3 will continue its support of the efforts the research and education communities are making to advanced networking," said Geoff Jordan, vice president for Level 3. "We look forward to continuing to work with the advanced networking community to provide the critical services needed to research and higher educational institutions across the country."