College campuses are picking up their pace — and gigabits.

University administrators from across the nation —including UNC — met Monday in Chicago to discuss an initiative that would increase Internet speeds at universities and their surrounding communities.

The initiative, called the University Community Next Generation Innovation Project, or Gig.U, involves 37 universities and is planning to partner with private-sector vendors such as AT&T to provide the Internet services.

“The strategy is to do it by utilizing university communities as test beds,” said Blair Levin, executive director for the project and communications and society fellow at The Aspen Institute think tank.

UNC’s goal is to upgrade from its 10-gigabit network to a 40-gig and eventually a 100-gig network, said Larry Conrad, vice chancellor for information technology and chief information officer at the University.

He said he hopes introducing ultra high-speed Internet will spark new opportunities for the University and its surrounding community.

“Facebook, Google, these are all things that came out of the university environments,” he said.

But areas around the universities do not have access to this high-speed Internet yet.

Duke University has a 10-gig network and fast connections to regional and national universities, but its surrounding community isn’t able to access those fast network speeds, said Kevin Davis, director of service management and operational integration at Duke’s Office of Information Technology.

“That impacts our community’s economic competitiveness,” he said.

Duke and N.C. State University are also participating in the initiative.

As populations in communities increase, it becomes more cost-efficient to set up new networks, said Marc Hoit, vice chancellor for information technology at N.C. State.

Conrad said areas such as Chapel Hill, where the majority of the population lives within a 3-mile radius, are ideal for installing ultra high-speed networks.

But Gig.U lacks the necessary funding to implement its plans. Vendors must be willing to invest in order for Gig.U to progress.

“The biggest obstacle or challenge, if you will, is funding,” Conrad said. “It all depends on whether we can find entities who are willing to do this and secondly, what level of partnership they are willing to enter.”

Levin said he couldn’t yet estimate the project’s cost.

Gig.U has sent requests for information to vendors for proposal on how they would implement the project.

Vendors’ responses to the requests are expected to come in Nov. 9.

“Until we see the responses come on the (requests for information), we’re just not going to know how feasible this is,” Conrad said.

“You’re asking them for proposals and if they don’t give you anything that’s going to work, you’re done.”

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