Status Report - October 13, 2008

Here is the ARE-ON status report for October 13, 2008:

1. ADVA DWDM equipment: A second shipment of ADVA DWDM equipment is scheduled for today via UPS. Scott Ramoly will handle unloading at the Government Ave. warehouse.

2. Little Rock/Monroe IRU: Now that the route survey for Monticello is done, I can now provide the information that we needed to place in the IRU document and will proceed with completion of the acquisition of this route this week.

3. Little Rock/Time Warner Telecom: We are currently awaiting TWTC’s review of the current draft of the agreement with the City of Little Rock. In a meeting with UALR and UAMS following the steering committee meeting last week, we were asked to develop an alternate to the TWTC fiber in the event the agreement is either delayed or fails.

4. Ritter/Jonesboro: The last update that we received from David Adams was on October 3rd. I have the Ritter IRU document in redline format, but did not make any progress last week in its review due to the busy schedule.

5. Suddenlink: I did not hear from Suddenlink this past week. We are anticipating two proposals from them, one for a fiber route from Jonesboro to Biscoe, and another for the lateral builds from our McLeod splice points in Russellville to the Arkansas Tech University campus.

6. McLeod/OneNet/Tulsa: This project is on hold pending the outcome the Van Buren/MBO project (below).

7. Juniper Routers: Steven Karp worked with OneNet to install a second, temporary 10Gig link using an extra wavelength between Fayetteville and Tulsa to connect our new Juniper MX960 to OneNet’s router at OSU Tulsa. We plan to make the cutover to the MX960 as our production core router, replacing the Force10 E600i, on the morning of October 17. This migration should be non-disruptive. Traffic will be moved to the temporary circuit while we replumb the current protected production circuit over to the MX960.

8. Fiber Laterals Engineering: We initiated a weekly status meeting with Facilities Management, McClelland Consulting Engineers, and CT&T on Friday, October 10. This was a very productive meeting. MCE delivered the contract to FACM, something we had hoped to have about a month ago. Not having it hasn’t slowed us up much since CT&T has been working with us without a contract. Another topic of discussion was the decision whether we can use the alternate delivery method of selecting a construction manager or whether each construction project will have to go through the normal bidding process. Bob Beeler of Facilities Management pledged to have the decision early next week in time to meet the Wednesday deadline for placing the newspaper ads soliciting responses for qualifications for construction managers. We also grouped the lateral construction projects into multiple phases, with the Alma, Russellville, and Fort Smith builds grouped as Phase I. We also spent some time discussing the Little Rock UALR/UAMS alternate route project. CT&T will meet Scott in Little Rock to develop the route so that a budgetary estimate can be prepared. We are asking that this estimate be ready within two weeks.

a. Alma/MBO: We received permission from Cox to use the splice point on the route along Hwy 64 just west of Alma. Scott Ramoly has instructed CT&T to begin the detailed route planning and right-of-way acquisition where we can build the fiber to the nearby McLeod splice point and to build a hut where we can install DWDM equipment. We will need right-of-way on the controlled access I-40, which will take special permission from the Arkansas Highway Department.

b. Fort Smith/UA Fort Smith: We are working on details of splicing into the MBO fiber to reach the UAFS campus. The routes are nearly complete. Key to the completion are two issues, including permission to splice into the Cox fiber north of the MBO POP, and access into AT&T conduit into the downtown area. Our plans include converting the ADVA amp site at the MBO POP into an OADM and relocating the equipment to the UAFS campus. This places UAFS on the backbone, plus eliminates the need for a ROADM at the MBO POP.

c. Russellville/Arkansas Tech University: CT&T identified a splice point near the I-40/Hwy 7 interchange that shortens the north route by nearly 1.5 miles, including a bridge crossing. McLeod has given us permission to use the splice point. There is a slack loop very near the campus that would shorten the south route by another 1.4 miles. McLeod has not given us permission to splice into this slack loop yet, but CT&T is advocating on our behalf.

d. Conway/University of Central Arkansas: We have a meeting scheduled on October 20 with Conway Corp about them potentially building the two routes to the UCA campus for us.

e. North Little Rock/Level3 POP: Preliminary route selection is complete.

f. Pine Bluff/UA Pine Bluff: Preliminary route selection is complete. However, CT&T is facilitating a meeting with WEHCO Cable to potentially use some of their fiber for one of the routes. This could save money, plus give us a partner in town for future projects.

g. Monticello/UA Monticello: Preliminary route selection is complete. CT&T identified a slack loop near the campus that eliminates near 3.5 miles on one route. McLeod has given permission to splice at that point, but has not given permission to use another splice point near the intersection of US425 and Jordan Road, which would eliminate nearly 1.2 miles off the other route.

h. Arkadelphia/Henderson State University: The preliminary route selection is complete. The north route will be much easier to construct than the south route.

i. Magnolia/Southern Arkansas University: We are pursuing the possibility of using fiber from multiple companies to span the distance between Magnolia and Monticello. CT&T is facilitating a discussion with these companies. If we can also identify a route from Magnolia to Hope or Texarkana, this would complete a ring for the southern part of the state, thus giving us the ability to build protected circuits for the ARE-ON members located in the southern half of the state.

j. Little Rock/UALR/UAMS: We are developing a possible alternative to the TWTC metro fiber that includes building fiber from a Level3 splice point near I-630 to the UAMS campus, then to the UALR campus, then to another Level3 splice point in south Little Rock. We started this project last Friday.

9. NOC: We made no progress on this project.

10. DIS Peering: We will work with DIS on migrating their Fayetteville connection to the new MX960 router after we have it in production.

11. Workshop: The BGP and routing workshop for the ARE-ON members took place on October 8th at the Cisco offices in Little Rock. Seventeen of the 21 registered people were able to attend. I started the workshop with three hours of training on routing and the BGP protocol. Following lunch provided by Cisco, Steven Karp led the participants through three hands-on labs using Cisco routers provided by Cisco, as well as two of our Juniper EX4200 switches that we brought from Fayetteville. Comments from the attendees were positive.

12. SAU Magnolia DNS: Steven Karp and I have consulted with SAU Magnolia on setting up their own public-facing primary DNS server on campus rather than relying on their commodity Internet provider.

13. ARE-ON Steering Committee: We all attended the steering committee meeting at the UA System Office in Little Rock on October 7. Mike Abbiatti introduced all of the people on the ARE-ON team. I gave a presentation on the status of the network construction.

14. UAMS Rural Hospitals: We had a videoconference with UAMS on October 10 to discuss their requirements for interfacing rural hospitals, clinics, and AHECs all over the state into the ARE-ON network.

-David Merrifield, Chief Technology Officer
Arkansas Research and Education Optical Network