History

  • 1989
    Initial vendor contracts for a point-to-point network of T1 telecommunications circuits hubbed in College Station are initiated.
  • 1990
    To provide high-speed data connections between the campuses and agencies of The Texas A&M University System, TTVN begins operations.
  • The first videoconference sites are installed in College Station and Galveston.
  • 1991
    The original name of the network, the Interactive Services Network, is changed to the Trans-Texas Videoconference Network to reflect the far-ranging nature of the network. Today, the network is known simply as TTVN.
  • During the early 1990s, more T1 circuits are added to campuses and other Texas A&M System facilities strategically located to serve the different geographic areas of Texas. As campuses are added to the Texas A&M System in Canyon, Commerce, Kingsville, Laredo and Texarkana, TTVN service is extended to those campuses along with AgriLife facilities in the Texas panhandle and Rio Grande Valley.
  • 1995
    The network grows to more than 30 data nodes and 44 videoconference sites. TTVN hosts more than 3,200 videoconference classes and meetings by the fifth-year anniversary of the network.
  • In the late 1990s, the Internet becomes the focus of TTVN technology and expansion. Explosive utilization of the World Wide Web and other internet technologies prompt TTVN to substantially increase network bandwidth and seek ways to provide robust, high-capacity, exceptionally reliable service. As videoconferencing begins to transition from a telecom-based environment to a more economical IP-based environment, the number of videoconference systems on the network increase to over 100.
  • 2004
    Plans are initiated to form a statewide consortium to implement a carrier-class, fully redundant network for the Texas higher education community. TTVN staff, working with more than 30 other Texas universities, formulate plans to purchase long-term leases of fiber optic circuits to form a network ring between Dallas, College Station, Houston and Austin. The new gigabit network, known as the Lonestar Education and Research Network (LEARN), provides the commodity internet and Internet2 infrastructure and capacity to serve all of the Texas higher education community, plus many aspects of Texas public schools., the need for an even more robust network was recognized.
  • The core TTVN network now consists of over 100 primary wide area network sites and more than 250 videoconference sites located at Texas A&M System campuses and facilities across the state and at international sites such as Texas A&M University-Qatar, and the Texas A&M Soltis Center in Costa Rica.
  • 2010
    Texas A&M University and TTVN are awarded a $6.6 million federal Broadband Technology Opportunities Program (BTOP) grant for the Texas Pipes project to provide enhanced redundant broadband access to all domestic Texas A&M System campuses, the Texas A&M Health Science Center, and communities served by TTVN and LEARN. The BTOP grant provides funds for construction of additional fiber optic circuits to fill critical last-mile and redundant circuit needs to a number of campuses and facilities as well as state and local government facilities.
  • TTVN provides enterprise-class commodity internet, Internet2, and Texas Intranet data services to all members of the Texas A&M System and the extended TTVN community. TTVN also provides videoconference scheduling and facilitation services, videoconference user and technical support, multi-point videoconference bridging, ISDN/H.320 gateways, live and recorded streaming video, and videoconference equipment maintenance.
  • 2015
    The TTVN Annual Conference, hosted by TTVN staff for 18 years, is renamed the “Texas A&M System Technology Summit.” The Texas A&M System Technology Summit is Texas' leading higher education conference focused on the technologies of enterprise networking, videoconferencing, webconferencing, and distance learning. For more information about the summit, please see the Texas A&M System Technology Summit web site at http://techsummit.tamu.edu.
  • 2022
    TTVN is renamed the Trans-Texas Digital Network (TTDN).

For more information about TTDN services, please contact us at (979) 845-8886.