Established in 1958, the Big Ten Academic Alliance is the nation’s preeminent model for effective collaboration among research universities. For more than half a century, the world-class institutions of the Big Ten and the University of Chicago have advanced their academic missions, generated unique opportunities for students and faculty, and served the common good by sharing expertise, leveraging campus resources, and collaborating on innovative programs. The Big Ten Academic Alliance is governed and funded by the Provosts of the member universities.
OmniPoP, the Alliance’s fiber optic network, connects participating institutions to each other and to research “hubs” worldwide with very high-speed connectivity. The network knits together the members’ regional optical networks on collaboratively owned fiber cable circling downtown Chicago. It provides multiple access points for researchers as well as the sort of redundancy that eliminates network downtime due to unforeseen fiber optic cable damage.
OmniPoP provides services to faculty and researchers that allow them to share bandwidth-intensive applications (such as high-definition video) and massive research datasets between regional, national, or global collaborators. OmniPoP has established direct ultra-high bandwidth connections to higher education and research peers that reduce users' cost and network latency. More information about research and education networking services available through OmniPoP is available by contacting the campus Technical Advisory Council members.
OmniPoP Members and Affiliates include:
- University of Illinois
- Indiana University
- University of Iowa
- University of Maryland
- University of Michigan
- Michigan State University
- University of Minnesota
- University of Nebraska-Lincoln
- Northwestern University
- Ohio State University
- Pennsylvania State University
- Purdue University
- Rutgers University
- University of Wisconsin-Madison
- University of Chicago
- WiscNet