Researchers Test Small-Dish Satellite Links for Distance Education

February 15, 2002

By FLORENCE OLSEN

Researchers at the Internet2 Technology Evaluation Center-Ohio are studying ways of using small-dish satellite technology to provide cheap, fast Internet connections for distance education.

The researchers recently joined the American Distance Education Consortium's Internet-satellite project. The consortium has a $4-million grant from the National Science Foundation to experiment with advanced Internet-satellite technology.

"We're very interested in pushing this technology to the point where we can do more distance education," says Janet K. Poley, who is president and chief executive officer of the consortium and also the lead researcher for the satellite project.

Many poor and remote communities in the United States that might benefit from distance education either have no Internet access or have access that is both costly and slow, says Ms. Poley. The consortium's members are 60 state and land-grant universities, and its headquarters is at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln (http://www.adec.edu).

The satellite project's goal is "digital inclusion," Ms. Poley says. "It seems to me you're better able to make progress if you're looking at digital inclusion, whereas 'digital divide' strikes me a bit like a big ditch you can't get over."

Gathering Information

Data collection for the satellite project has already begun. "We're starting to identify the problems," says Pankaj Shah, director of the Internet2 Technology Evaluation Center. The center, operated by a consortium of Ohio universities, government agencies, and technology corporations, is part of the Ohio Supercomputer Center, in Columbus.

Among the technical challenges facing the researchers will be trying to make broadband Internet2 technologies such as multicast videoconferencing work within the bandwidth constraints and signal delays of small-dish satellite technology.

A related challenge, Mr. Shah says, will be to develop both an affordable satellite dish, for which colleges would pay about $5,000 or less, and 24-hour Internet satellite service, priced at about $1,200 or less a month. The research is being conducted using Internet satellite equipment and service from Tachyon Inc., in San Diego.

Ms. Poley says the research, if successful, would expand distance-education opportunities for students attending colleges in rural and remote areas, as well as tribal, historically black, and Hispanic colleges, and the communities those institutions serve. The distance-education consortium has already mounted satellite dishes atop buildings at 45 of those colleges.

On Call

Engineers for the Ohio Academic Resources Network at the Ohio Supercomputer Center will be available to field calls from colleges that need technical support. "When the sites have a problem, they will call in to us," says Mr. Shah. "Our engineers will take care of it."

The satellite experiments with small-dish systems are bringing together other technologies, including the Internet2 backbone network. "Hybrid networking" is the only way to bring high-quality Internet service to colleges in poor, rural, and remote areas, Ms. Poley says. In many places around the world, satellite systems "are critical to getting distance education to more populations."

The consortium is working with researchers and educators at each remote site, trying to get "a nice mix" of activities that require satellite access to the Internet, says Ms. Poley. "We say that technology is necessary but is not sufficient to make good things happen."