The Quilt a coalition of advanced regional networking organizations, today announced it has selected Cogent, Global Crossing, and WilTel as new Authorized Quilt Vendors (AQV) for Internet service to offer high performance network services as part of The Quilt's Commodity Internet Services (CIS) project. The Quilt also extended existing AQV agreements with Level 3 Communications and Qwest Communications. The Quilt provides a forum for advanced regional network organizations and others dedicated to advancing research and education in the United States. The CIS project aggregates the buying power of The Quilt participants to get the best value and lowest priced commodity Internet services. Participants in The Quilt together used over 20 gigabits per second of commercial Internet connectivity in 2003. "The Quilt participants serve over one hundred institutions, whose aggregated bandwidth requirements for commodity Internet service are expected to grow to nearly 25 gigabits per second in the next year," said Hudnall Croasdale, Executive Director of The Quilt. "The companies selected by The Quilt to be authorized Internet service providers will help meet The Quilt's institutions' crucial need to move large amounts of data quickly, reliably, and cost-effectively, bringing the power of this technology to bear on their organizations' service delivery." Specific parameters met by the companies selected as AQVs for Internet Service include: * National pricing for The Quilt participants; * Peering, including number and location of public and private peering points; * Availability of advanced services such as Multicast and IPv6; and * Backbone and support services. The Quilt gathers more than 20 leading research and education networking organizations in the United States to promote consistent, reliable, interoperable and efficient advanced networking services that extend to the broadest possible community; and to represent common interests in the development and delivery of advanced network services. Participants in The Quilt provide network service for more than 200 Internet2 universities and thousands of other educational institutions. Internet2, a university-led research and development consortium, provides organizational support for The Quilt. For more information, see: http://www.thequilt.net