PSC and Fibertech Open New PoP

PITTSBURGH, April 29, 2008 – The Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center (PSC) and Fibertech Networks today celebrated the opening of a PSC Point of Presence (PoP) in Fibertech’s new collocation facility in Pittsburgh’s Allegheny Center Mall.

A 30-minute program featured brief remarks from:

• Wendy Huntoon, PSC Director of Networking;
• Pat Dolan, Fibertech Director of Sales, Eastern Region;
• Richard Fitzgerald, President, Allegheny County Council;
• Tim Devlin, Program Director of Instructional Media Services, Allegheny Intermediate Unit; and
• Cecelia Cagni, Senior Marketing Director, Pittsburgh Regional Alliance.

Huntoon noted that the new PoP is PSC’s first off-campus location, making connectivity through 3ROX (Three Rivers Optical Exchange) more cost-effective in providing underlying support for economic growth in the southwest Pennsylvania region. Devlin briefly described the networking program of the Allegheny Intermediate Unit, 42 suburban school districts surrounding the city of Pittsburgh. Optical fiber will link all 200 school buildings of all 42 districts and, through the Allegheny Center Mall (ACM) PoP, connect back to 3ROX, providing access to state-of-the-art educational resources.

Through 3ROX, a major regional network-aggregation point or PoP, PSC provides and supports network connectivity for research and educational organizations in the tri-state area. Members of 3ROX include: Carnegie Mellon University, the Pennsylvania State University, the University of Pittsburgh, West Virginia University, the Pittsburgh Public Schools, and Woodland Hills School District. The ACM PoP will provide more robust and uninterruptible network service to these organizations.

FiberTech Networks operates a Metropolitan Wide Area Network in Pittsburgh that uses fiber optic-based transport services. Available to local businesses, the Allegheny Center Mall facility will enable customers to meet their current and future connectivity requirements with unlimited scalability.