vBNS

Short for very high-speed Backbone Network Service, an experimental wide-area network backbone sponsored by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and implemented by MCI. vNBS has replaced NSFnet and is designed to serve as a platform for testing new, high-speed Internet technologies and protocols. It currently links several Supercomputer Centers (SCCs) and Network Access Points (NAPs) at OC-12 speeds (622 Mbps). By 1998, it will support data, voice and video traffic at 2.5 Gbps.