UNL has earned a share of millions of dollars in grants awarded by the National Science Foundation to help spur the development of a more robust, secure and reliable Internet.
UNL is part of a Rutgers University-led research team that aims to develop a future Internet design optimized for mobile networking and communication. The team was awarded a three-year, $7.5 million grant for the project called "MobilityFirst." The project reflects the shift of Internet traffic from PCs to smart cellular phones, tablet computers and other mobile devices.
There are more than four billion mobile devices in use worldwide today, and experts predict that by 2015, these wireless devices will significantly outnumber wired devices on the Internet.
Byrav Ramamurthy, associate professor of computer science and engineering (pictured), will lead the UNL team. It will study the impact of the rising number of mobile users on the Internet core, which consists of a fiber-optic network. In addition, UNL researchers will contribute to the overall design and evaluation of the MobilityFirst Future Internet architecture.
UNL's share of the grant is $300,000 over three years.
The MobilityFirst research team is one of four chosen by the NSF to participate in its Future Internet Architecture program. The awards, each worth up to $8 million over three years, will enable researchers at dozens of institutions across the country to pursue new ways to build a more trustworthy and powerful Internet.
- Jean Ortiz Jones, University Communications