By TANGELA JOHNSON

Staff Writer

Imagine a computer that is connected to a system 1,000 times faster than the broadband available on campus.

This project, named the Louisiana Optical Network Initiative, was given full support by Gov. Kathleen Blanco in September 2004.

It will include Louisiana State University-Baton Rouge, Tech, LSU Medical Center in Shreveport and New Orleans, the University of Louisiana-Lafayette, Southern University in Baton Rouge, the University of New Orleans and Tulane University in New Orleans.

Chris Womak, the information technology coordinator for the Center for Entrepreneurship and Information Technology, said such a network may be in Tech's future.

"[The system] is going to allow grid networking," Womak said.

Womak said the revolutionary system will allow large quantities of information to be transmitted in short amounts of time.

"The governor is backing this 100 percent," Womak said. "She committed $40 million to LONI over the next ten years.

"Any high-speed networking applications would be able to utilize it."

Womak said grid computing allows clusters of computers to act as one. This means that large amounts of information, such as video, that would normally be sent by E-mail or downloaded would be transmitted instantaneously in real time through fiber optics.

Joshua Raley, a sophomore business management and entrepreneurship major, said he has high expectations for the venture.

"I hope it moves the area and Tech to a more competitive arena in business," he said.

He said he hopes to see an overall improvement in business as well as education.

Womak said if the system is installed on campus, more money for research should be made available to the school. The fiber optics network will include Tech in the national network called the Lambda Rail.

"[The network] allows us to connect to the national Lambda Rail," Womak said. "Instead of traveling on a two-lane highway, we will be on the super interstate."

Leslie Guice, the vice president for research and development, said the quality of all system tasks will also dramatically improve.

"High resolution digital media is one good example of data that could be transmitted over the network," Guice said. "Rather than having blurry and jerky images as typical in today's internet video streams, we will be able to get very high resolution data streaming in real time simultaneously from multiple sources."

Guice said LONI will mean great things for business in Louisiana.

"Attracting these companies to LONI will mean new job opportunities for Louisiana citizens and will therefore provide new job opportunities for our graduates," he said.

Dr. Melvin Corley, a professor of mechanical engineering, said the process of putting the system on campus is still underway but may not be complete until the end of this year.

"There will be a period of deciding what possible routes to take," Corley said. "Then [the state] will find the most economical path to connect [Tech] to Baton Rouge."

Corley said the amount of research and educational programs that will benefit from this will be phenomenal.

"It's a factor 500 times the [information] we have now," Corley said. "Louisiana Tech is going to be ahead of technology."