The Massachusetts public higher education system requests support from NSF for connection of Greenfield Community College, Massachusetts Bay Community College, Massasoit Community College, Springfield Technical Community College, Massachusetts Maritime Academy, and Westfield State College through MassNet and the New England Academic Research Network (NEARnet) which is the NSF mid- level network that serves the New England area. A primary goal of NEARnet is to facilitate collaborative projects and sharing of resources between institution, including those outside the state. NEARnet will provide operations management and information services and it will give the universities and colleges a connection to the NSFNET, a high speed (1.5 - 45 million bits per second) National Backbone network. The each of the universities has written a description of its organization and a statement of the benefits of Internet access that it expects including: greater functionality and network speed to be able to access supercomputers, libraries, and make file transfers along with being able to implement a more reliable mail system. Students and faculty research will benefit from the links. This is also a unique opportunity for the schools to explore innovative educational resources. Their diversity will expose NEARnet to a broader range of user requirements. Nearnet will use the information obtained by serving this diverse group for the benefit of New England's academic and research community.
