Here is the ARE-ON status report for November 24, 2008:
1. ADVA DWDM equipment: The meeting with State Procurement to hear ePlus and Cisco present their concerns expressed by the protest filed in the award of the DWDM equipment was held on Monday, November 17. A follow-on conference call took place on November 19. We anticipate the decision by State Procurement to be announced this week.
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 have had no further updates from the Little Rock city attorney on the TWTC agreement. I believe it is time to move on to other options since there seems to be no hope of any timely completion of the agreement.
4. Ritter/Jonesboro: David Adams called me late on Friday to give an update on Ritter’s progress. Ritter has completed the construction for their portion of the project from Harrisburg to Vanndale (just north of Wynne) and are now working with Arkansas State University-Jonesboro to complete the build-out to the campus demarc. WEHCO is making progress on building between Wynne and Vanndale, with completion expected in mid-December. David did not have up-to-date information on the WEHCO project to build from Forrest City to the Level3 and McLeod POPs in Widener.
5. Suddenlink: The proposal for the two Suddenlink routes in Russellville and Arkadelphia are still on the table as alternatives to doing our own construction.
6. McLeod/OneNet/Tulsa: This project is on hold pending the outcome the Alma project (below). All indications are that we will not need any additional fiber in Tulsa and can ask OneNet for a refund of an IRU for cross-town fiber to reach their demarc at the OSU Tulsa campus.
7. Juniper Routers: Steven Karp continues to work with Juniper on resolution of two problems that have been plagued us for nearly a month. After the outage we took on Sunday, November 16, Steven requested a conference call with Juniper management that took place on Monday, November 17, during which time expressed frustration with the level of communication by Juniper TAC. Juniper promised better communication and gave us insight on the progress that they have made with the problems. They also helped us understand better how to approach the JTAC duty manager when we need status information or have a need to escalate a problem.
8. Fiber Laterals Engineering: The approval of our selection of the construction manager is still pending at the UA System Office. Dr. B. Alan Sugg will take it to the ARE-ON board for their approval before we can award the contract.
Since we have been unable to get the permits that we need from the AHTD to do construction along controlled access highways (interstate highways), we have approached McLeod and Level3 for their assistance in completing these builds. I contacted Level3 and have begun the process of getting them to build from their splice points to a demarcation point where we can meet them with our fiber. Scott Ramoly will be doing site visits with a Level3 engineer on December 3 from which Level3 will create a scope of work and estimate of cost. CT&T will be accompanying them. McLeod is proving to be a bit more flexible. CT&T contacted them and they have agreed to front the permitting with the AHTD for us, but work through CT&T on the engineering and construction.
Here are brief status updates on each of the fiber lateral projects:
a. Alma/MBO: The signed easements have been forwarded to James Ezell at UAF, who is taking them to the UA System Office and Board of Trustees for approval. He is seeking a blanket approval for these easements since we will have a number of them. The UA System Office legal counsel made a slight change in the DBA name under which ARE-ON is operating for the purpose of these easements.
In our weekly status meeting with McClelland, we went over preliminary designs for the fiber hut that we must construct near Alma. Steven produced a 3D representation of his ideas using Sketchup. McClelland send Steven their current draft of the Autocad drawings, which he was able to import into Sketchup McClelland will incorporate our ideas in their next draft.
CT&T will be working with McLeod on the engineering of the short build on I-40.
b. Fort Smith/UA Fort Smith: I met Cox Communications and MBO in Fort Smith on November 17 to verify that a proposed splice point near the Garrison Avenue bridge was viable for our use. Now finally having two connecting points to our existing MBO fiber, CT&T can complete the measurements so that we can have this ready for construction whenever the construction manager contract is completed.
c. Russellville/Arkansas Tech University: The northern route to the ATU campus is completed, and CT&T should have drawings ready within a week. CT&T will work with McLeod on the build necessary along I-40, plus they can now complete the measurements for the eastern route to the campus. I am uncertain at this point whether it will be necessary to get more private easements to complete this route.
d. Conway/University of Central Arkansas: We are still awaiting the proposal from Conway Corp on the northern route to the UCA campus. CT&T will work with McLeod on the short build needed along I-40 to a pole where we will meet Conway Corp’s fiber. CT&T has begun developing the southern route to the campus. Scott and I found a new splice point on the McLeod fiber that is closer than the original one that we identified. If this proves to be a viable splice point for our use, we will not need to build along I-40 controlled access right-of-way.
e. North Little Rock/Level3 POP: Preliminary route selection is complete. We are considering eliminate these builds in favor of a much shorter fiber build at the North Little Rock McLeod POP.
f. Pine Bluff/UA Pine Bluff: Preliminary route selection is complete. We are still waiting on a proposal from WEHCO Video on the alternative for the southern route to the UAPB campus. CT&T will work with McLeod on the short build along I-530.
g. Monticello/UA Monticello: CT&T has completed measurements and drafting for both routes to the UAM campus. It is ready for construction as soon as the construction manager contract is completed.
h. Arkadelphia/Henderson State University: CT&T has completed the route diagrams for the north route to the HSU campus, and has completed the measurements for the south route. Since Suddenlink’s alternative for the south route will likely be less expensive, we placed further work by CT&T on this route until we have a chance to review the Suddenlink proposal. The north route requires a lateral crossing of I-30, which should pose no permitting problems from the AHTD. The southern route, if we choose to build it, will require some construction by Level3 due to AHTD restrictions on permitting. We are working with Level3 on a possible proposal for this build. The Suddenlink proposal has the advantage of not requiring us to obtain the AHTD permit.
i. Magnolia/Southern Arkansas University: CT&T arranged two meetings with Community Cable and South Arkansas Telephone Company on December 2 in Little Rock. Unfortunately, South Arkansas Telephone Company has asked for a postponement, which may indicate some reluctance in working with us. We are going ahead with the Community Cable meeting and will try to reschedule the meeting with SATCO. These meetings could provide extremely important in our efforts to get fiber between Monticello and Magnolia.
j. Little Rock/UALR/UAMS: CT&T has completed a preliminary route design and estimate for a route between two Level3 splice points in Little Rock through the UALR and UAMS campuses. Given the uncertainty of the TWTC fiber, I think we are close to making the decision about building this route.
k. Monroe/University of Louisiana – We are awaiting the MOU with LONI before we can proceed with this project.
9. Arkansas One-Call & ARKUPS: The application for ARKUPS (the non-profit organization that will contract with us to do utility locates) has not yet come in. When we receive it, we will file it along with the application for Arkansas One-Call.
10. Commodity Internet: As a part of our discussions with Level3 about fiber construction along the interstate highways, we opened dialogue on the possibility of obtaining Level3 commodity Internet service. Level3 identified on-net locations in Nashville, Memphis, and Dallas where we can obtain free backhaul. Nashville is out of the question, but Memphis and Dallas could both be made possible by lighting the paths to those cities. Level3 is checking into what they can provide in Little Rock. They offer service through the metro fiber network (formerly Telcove), but the cost may be higher and is not covered by the Quilt contract. We will continue to pursue this with them.
We continue to receive information from Qwest about their commodity Internet and other services. Qwest is checking into handoff of services to locations where we have fiber terminations in Dallas and Tulsa. We are looking for any location where we can avoid having to pay local loop or backhaul costs to reach a Qwest POP.
Late note: A letter from Richard Weiss, Director of the Arkansas Department of Finance and Administration, went out to all state agencies, boards and commissions, and institutions of higher education in which he informed all that all of these agencies are required to use the state core network operated by DIS for commodity Internet. Our legal counsel is reviewing this document. At face value, it could pose a problem to our intent to offer commodity Internet services to our members.
11. NOC: We made no progress on this project.
12. DIS Peering: We still plan to work with DIS on migrating their Fayetteville connection to the new MX960 router.
13. Training: Scott Ramoly attended a class on outside plant cabling in Albuquerque November 17-21. This class will be key to the construction of our fiber hut in Alma and will also be useful for producing the detailed site preparation documents that we will append to the collocation agreements with our member campuses.
-David Merrifield, Chief Technology Officer
Arkansas Research and Education Optical Network
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
Sunday, November 16, 2008
Status Report - November 17, 2008
Here is the ARE-ON status report for November 17, 2008:
1. ADVA DWDM equipment: The hearing for the protest filed in the award of the DWDM equipment is scheduled for 10:00am on Monday, November 17.
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 have had no further updates from the Little Rock city attorney on the TWTC agreement. Scott Ramoly, Steven Karp, and I have been discussing an update to our network design in the event that the TWTC fiber decision is substantially delayed or falls through.
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 and have a draft ready to go back to him this week.
5. Suddenlink: Suddenlink has provided us with estimates on two routes, one from the eastern splice point in Russellville to the ATU campus, and one along the southern route in Arkadelphia to the HSU campus. Both are significantly less expensive than the cost of building our own fiber, but have the disadvantage of being almost entirely aerial and being limited to just four strands of fiber.
6. McLeod/OneNet/Tulsa: This project is on hold pending the outcome the Alma project (below). All indications are that we will not need any additional fiber in Tulsa and can ask OneNet for a refund of an IRU for cross-town fiber to reach their demarc at the OSU Tulsa campus.
7. Juniper Routers: Steven Karp has continued to work with Juniper TAC on a problem with BGP that appears to be related to a non-stop routing bug that he uncovered on the MX960. This came to a head this Sunday morning, November 16, when OneNet maintenance triggered a problem with the router we peer with, which in turn triggered the same BGP problem we have had between the MX960 and one of our lab routers. Steven came in and rebooted the MX960. We had about two hours of unplanned downtime on Sunday morning. Steven thinks that all of the problems he has seen over the past 3-4 weeks have been related to the non-stop routing problem.
8. Fiber Laterals Engineering: The evaluation committee met with the candidates for the construction manager job on Friday, November 14. Four companies were interviewed and a recommendation was made to Dr. Don Pederson. He will be writing a letter to Dr. B. Alan Sugg for approval by the ARE-ON board. The selection is based on qualifications, and if the selection is approved, the university will negotiate the cost for the company’s services. The construction manager will serve as general contractor for the fiber laterals construction, be responsible for bidding the individual construction projects to qualified subcontractors, and supervise the construction to ensure that it is done per the design specifications for each route. We have several sites just about ready for construction, all of which will be placed in the first phase bid package.
Scott Ramoly and I had a meeting with the AHTD on Wednesday, November 12, in their offices in Little Rock. AHTD has continued to hold to their policy that they will only grant right-of-way permits on controlled access highways (interstate highways) to telecommunications utilities. We will contact Level3 and McLeod about building the portions of the routes we need along the interstates, but we will also contact some of the other carriers we have done business with about the same. This setback will likely cause delays and cost us significantly more money, neither of which we can really afford. Until we have the permits for these portions of our routes, CT&T cannot complete the route design for a number of locations, including Alma, Russellville, Conway, North Little Rock, Pine Bluff, and Arkadelphia.
Here are brief status updates on each of the fiber lateral projects:
a. Alma/MBO: CT&T has obtained signed easements for the fiber build and fiber hut construction. Last Friday a question arose about whose name for ARE-ON should appear on the easements. We are trying to get this clarified. This question, plus the resolution of the AHTD permit for the short build along I-40, are the two holdups on this project. This build needs to be in the first bid package for construction.
b. Fort Smith/UA Fort Smith: I have a meeting in Fort Smith on Monday afternoon, November 17, with Cox Communications and MBO to verify and get permission to use a Cox splice point near the Garrison Avenue bridge in Fort Smith. Once we have the permission, CT&T can complete the design for the southern route to the UAFS campus. The two routes in Fort Smith will be in the first bid package for construction.
c. Russellville/Arkansas Tech University: The northern route to the ATU campus is completed, and CT&T should have drawings ready within a week. We are awaiting final approval from the ATHD for right-of-way along I-40 for the eastern route to the campus before CT&T can complete their design. Suddenlink’s estimate for the eastern route is lower in cost than building it ourselves and presents an attractive alternative.
d. Conway/University of Central Arkansas: Scott Ramoly and I had a meeting with Conway Corp on Monday, November 10, during which they provided us with a description of the north route that they would be willing to provide for us to the UCA campus. We will have to build a short piece of that route, a portion of which requires a permit for access to I-40. We should receive the proposal, including cost, sometime this week. Conway Corp cannot provide fiber for our southern route to the campus, and we have asked CT&T to start working on that route.
e. North Little Rock/Level3 POP: Preliminary route selection is complete. We are awaiting final approval of the right-of-way along I-40 and I-30 controlled access highway before CT&T can complete the final route design. While waiting we have considered an alternative to these two fiber builds that may lower our costs and accommodate a substantial delay in the availability of the TWTC fiber.
f. Pine Bluff/UA Pine Bluff: Preliminary route selection is complete. Scott Ramoly and I had a meeting with WEHCO Video in Little Rock on Tuesday, November 11, during which we pitched the idea of using their fiber for one of the routes to the UAPB campus. WEHCO is very interested and is working on a proposal and pricing for us. We feel that WEHCO can significantly lower our costs in Pine Bluff.
g. Monticello/UA Monticello: CT&T has completed both routes to the UAM campus and should have the route drawings completed within a week.
h. Arkadelphia/Henderson State University: CT&T has completed the route diagrams for the north route to the HSU campus, and has completed the measurements for the south route. Since Suddenlink’s alternative for the south route will likely be less expensive, we placed further work by CT&T on this route until we have a chance to review the Suddenlink proposal. The north route requires a lateral crossing of I-30, which should pose no permitting problems from the AHTD, but the south route will require a permit from AHTD for a short portion along I-30. The Suddenlink proposal has the advantage of not requiring us to obtain the AHTD permit.
i. Magnolia/Southern Arkansas University: CT&T has arranged two meetings with Community Cable and South Arkansas Telephone Company on December 2 in Little Rock. We will propose a cooperative arrangement to use their fiber, potentially with some additional construction, to link Monticello to El Dorado. From El Dorado, we hope to use Suddenlink fiber to reach Magnolia. This will solve our major outstanding dilemma with reaching SAU with dark fiber if these companies are receptive to our proposal.
j. Little Rock/UALR/UAMS: CT&T has completed a preliminary route design and estimate for a route between two Level3 splice points in Little Rock through the UALR and UAMS campuses. In the event we are unable to use the TWTC fiber in Little Rock, this could be a viable route for connecting these two campuses.
k. Monroe/University of Louisiana – We are awaiting the MOU with LONI before we can proceed with this project.
9. Arkansas On-Call & ARKUPS: Scott Ramoly and I dropped by the Arkansas One-Call offices in Conway on our way back from Little Rock on November 12. We picked up an application for AOC and had a very nice conversation with their CEO and Operations Manager. AOC’s sister company is ARKUPS who provides locate services for utilities. Membership in Arkansas One-Call is an absolute requirement for ARE-ON, and having a contract with ARKUPS for utility locate service will pretty much be a necessity.
10. Qwest Commodity Internet: We began discussions with Qwest via a conference call on November 11 on the use of their commodity Internet service through the Quilt. Qwest is preparing a list of on-net connecting points in our region so that we can evaluate where we might need to place equipment. Qwest does not have IPv6 dual-stack support in production yet, which we feel will be important for any CIS provider we contract with, but they plan to roll it out in early 2009. We also talked with Qwest about direct peering through OneNet via a VLAN, and this is still under investigation.
11. NOC: We made no progress on this project.
12. DIS Peering: We still plan to work with DIS on migrating their Fayetteville connection to the new MX960 router.
13. Campus Visits: Mike Abbiatti and Steven Karp traveled to Northwestern State University in Natchitoches, LA, on November 11-13 to meet with representatives from Arkansas Tech University. This was the second in the series of meetings designed to match ARE-ON universities with similar universities in Louisiana to trade ideas about applications and network use.
14. Training: Scott Ramoly will be attending a class on outside plant cabling in Albuquerque November 17-21. This class will be key to the construction of our fiber hut in Alma and will also be useful for producing the detailed site preparation documents that we will append to the collocation agreements with our member campuses.
-David Merrifield, Chief Technology Officer
Arkansas Research and Education Optical Network
1. ADVA DWDM equipment: The hearing for the protest filed in the award of the DWDM equipment is scheduled for 10:00am on Monday, November 17.
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 have had no further updates from the Little Rock city attorney on the TWTC agreement. Scott Ramoly, Steven Karp, and I have been discussing an update to our network design in the event that the TWTC fiber decision is substantially delayed or falls through.
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 and have a draft ready to go back to him this week.
5. Suddenlink: Suddenlink has provided us with estimates on two routes, one from the eastern splice point in Russellville to the ATU campus, and one along the southern route in Arkadelphia to the HSU campus. Both are significantly less expensive than the cost of building our own fiber, but have the disadvantage of being almost entirely aerial and being limited to just four strands of fiber.
6. McLeod/OneNet/Tulsa: This project is on hold pending the outcome the Alma project (below). All indications are that we will not need any additional fiber in Tulsa and can ask OneNet for a refund of an IRU for cross-town fiber to reach their demarc at the OSU Tulsa campus.
7. Juniper Routers: Steven Karp has continued to work with Juniper TAC on a problem with BGP that appears to be related to a non-stop routing bug that he uncovered on the MX960. This came to a head this Sunday morning, November 16, when OneNet maintenance triggered a problem with the router we peer with, which in turn triggered the same BGP problem we have had between the MX960 and one of our lab routers. Steven came in and rebooted the MX960. We had about two hours of unplanned downtime on Sunday morning. Steven thinks that all of the problems he has seen over the past 3-4 weeks have been related to the non-stop routing problem.
8. Fiber Laterals Engineering: The evaluation committee met with the candidates for the construction manager job on Friday, November 14. Four companies were interviewed and a recommendation was made to Dr. Don Pederson. He will be writing a letter to Dr. B. Alan Sugg for approval by the ARE-ON board. The selection is based on qualifications, and if the selection is approved, the university will negotiate the cost for the company’s services. The construction manager will serve as general contractor for the fiber laterals construction, be responsible for bidding the individual construction projects to qualified subcontractors, and supervise the construction to ensure that it is done per the design specifications for each route. We have several sites just about ready for construction, all of which will be placed in the first phase bid package.
Scott Ramoly and I had a meeting with the AHTD on Wednesday, November 12, in their offices in Little Rock. AHTD has continued to hold to their policy that they will only grant right-of-way permits on controlled access highways (interstate highways) to telecommunications utilities. We will contact Level3 and McLeod about building the portions of the routes we need along the interstates, but we will also contact some of the other carriers we have done business with about the same. This setback will likely cause delays and cost us significantly more money, neither of which we can really afford. Until we have the permits for these portions of our routes, CT&T cannot complete the route design for a number of locations, including Alma, Russellville, Conway, North Little Rock, Pine Bluff, and Arkadelphia.
Here are brief status updates on each of the fiber lateral projects:
a. Alma/MBO: CT&T has obtained signed easements for the fiber build and fiber hut construction. Last Friday a question arose about whose name for ARE-ON should appear on the easements. We are trying to get this clarified. This question, plus the resolution of the AHTD permit for the short build along I-40, are the two holdups on this project. This build needs to be in the first bid package for construction.
b. Fort Smith/UA Fort Smith: I have a meeting in Fort Smith on Monday afternoon, November 17, with Cox Communications and MBO to verify and get permission to use a Cox splice point near the Garrison Avenue bridge in Fort Smith. Once we have the permission, CT&T can complete the design for the southern route to the UAFS campus. The two routes in Fort Smith will be in the first bid package for construction.
c. Russellville/Arkansas Tech University: The northern route to the ATU campus is completed, and CT&T should have drawings ready within a week. We are awaiting final approval from the ATHD for right-of-way along I-40 for the eastern route to the campus before CT&T can complete their design. Suddenlink’s estimate for the eastern route is lower in cost than building it ourselves and presents an attractive alternative.
d. Conway/University of Central Arkansas: Scott Ramoly and I had a meeting with Conway Corp on Monday, November 10, during which they provided us with a description of the north route that they would be willing to provide for us to the UCA campus. We will have to build a short piece of that route, a portion of which requires a permit for access to I-40. We should receive the proposal, including cost, sometime this week. Conway Corp cannot provide fiber for our southern route to the campus, and we have asked CT&T to start working on that route.
e. North Little Rock/Level3 POP: Preliminary route selection is complete. We are awaiting final approval of the right-of-way along I-40 and I-30 controlled access highway before CT&T can complete the final route design. While waiting we have considered an alternative to these two fiber builds that may lower our costs and accommodate a substantial delay in the availability of the TWTC fiber.
f. Pine Bluff/UA Pine Bluff: Preliminary route selection is complete. Scott Ramoly and I had a meeting with WEHCO Video in Little Rock on Tuesday, November 11, during which we pitched the idea of using their fiber for one of the routes to the UAPB campus. WEHCO is very interested and is working on a proposal and pricing for us. We feel that WEHCO can significantly lower our costs in Pine Bluff.
g. Monticello/UA Monticello: CT&T has completed both routes to the UAM campus and should have the route drawings completed within a week.
h. Arkadelphia/Henderson State University: CT&T has completed the route diagrams for the north route to the HSU campus, and has completed the measurements for the south route. Since Suddenlink’s alternative for the south route will likely be less expensive, we placed further work by CT&T on this route until we have a chance to review the Suddenlink proposal. The north route requires a lateral crossing of I-30, which should pose no permitting problems from the AHTD, but the south route will require a permit from AHTD for a short portion along I-30. The Suddenlink proposal has the advantage of not requiring us to obtain the AHTD permit.
i. Magnolia/Southern Arkansas University: CT&T has arranged two meetings with Community Cable and South Arkansas Telephone Company on December 2 in Little Rock. We will propose a cooperative arrangement to use their fiber, potentially with some additional construction, to link Monticello to El Dorado. From El Dorado, we hope to use Suddenlink fiber to reach Magnolia. This will solve our major outstanding dilemma with reaching SAU with dark fiber if these companies are receptive to our proposal.
j. Little Rock/UALR/UAMS: CT&T has completed a preliminary route design and estimate for a route between two Level3 splice points in Little Rock through the UALR and UAMS campuses. In the event we are unable to use the TWTC fiber in Little Rock, this could be a viable route for connecting these two campuses.
k. Monroe/University of Louisiana – We are awaiting the MOU with LONI before we can proceed with this project.
9. Arkansas On-Call & ARKUPS: Scott Ramoly and I dropped by the Arkansas One-Call offices in Conway on our way back from Little Rock on November 12. We picked up an application for AOC and had a very nice conversation with their CEO and Operations Manager. AOC’s sister company is ARKUPS who provides locate services for utilities. Membership in Arkansas One-Call is an absolute requirement for ARE-ON, and having a contract with ARKUPS for utility locate service will pretty much be a necessity.
10. Qwest Commodity Internet: We began discussions with Qwest via a conference call on November 11 on the use of their commodity Internet service through the Quilt. Qwest is preparing a list of on-net connecting points in our region so that we can evaluate where we might need to place equipment. Qwest does not have IPv6 dual-stack support in production yet, which we feel will be important for any CIS provider we contract with, but they plan to roll it out in early 2009. We also talked with Qwest about direct peering through OneNet via a VLAN, and this is still under investigation.
11. NOC: We made no progress on this project.
12. DIS Peering: We still plan to work with DIS on migrating their Fayetteville connection to the new MX960 router.
13. Campus Visits: Mike Abbiatti and Steven Karp traveled to Northwestern State University in Natchitoches, LA, on November 11-13 to meet with representatives from Arkansas Tech University. This was the second in the series of meetings designed to match ARE-ON universities with similar universities in Louisiana to trade ideas about applications and network use.
14. Training: Scott Ramoly will be attending a class on outside plant cabling in Albuquerque November 17-21. This class will be key to the construction of our fiber hut in Alma and will also be useful for producing the detailed site preparation documents that we will append to the collocation agreements with our member campuses.
-David Merrifield, Chief Technology Officer
Arkansas Research and Education Optical Network
Sunday, November 9, 2008
Status Report - November 10, 2008
Here is the ARE-ON status report for November 10, 2008:
1. ADVA DWDM equipment: A protest was filed in the award of the DWDM equipment RFP. The November 12 hearing scheduled with State Procurement was postponed to November 17.
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 have had no further updates from the Little Rock city attorney on the TWTC agreement. He had planned a conference call with TWTC on October 30, but we have no word on the outcome of the call. The major outstanding issue was usage restrictions for our use of the TWTC metro fiber.
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 and have a draft ready to go back to him this week.
5. Suddenlink: We are awaiting a new estimate from Suddenlink for a fiber route in Arkadelphia that might displace our need to build the southern route to the HSU campus. Also, Suddenlink said they would provide an estimate for an alternative to our eastern route in Russellville to the ATU campus.
6. McLeod/OneNet/Tulsa: This project is on hold pending the outcome the Alma project (below). All indications are that we will not need any additional fiber in Tulsa and can ask OneNet for a refund of an IRU for cross-town fiber to reach their demarc at the OSU Tulsa campus.
7. Juniper Routers: Steven Karp had originally planned to move the UAF Juniper M10 router from the Force10 router to the Fayetteville Juniper MX960 on November 6, but he encountered a BGP problem while testing the configuration in our lab that caused a postponement. He and I have still not been able to identify the source of the problem. This makes the third major problem with the MX960 routers since their acquisition this summer.
8. Fiber Laterals Engineering: Of the five companies who responded to the newspaper advertisement for a construction manager, four have agreed to come to Fayetteville for the interviews scheduled to take place on November 14. The fifth company withdrew because they were more interested in the actual construction than construction management.
We have had several conversations with AHTD personnel regarding our request for use of right-of-way along controlled access highways. AHTD’s policy restricts these permits to utilities only, so we are continuing to work with them on a waiver of the policy. These permits are critical to our ability to build our lateral fibers to our member campuses. Until we reach resolution, CT&T will be unable to complete the survey and drafting work necessary to begin construction.
Here are brief status updates on each of the fiber lateral projects:
a. Alma/MBO: CT&T has obtained verbal agreement for all of the easements necessary for the fiber build and fiber hut construction. They are securing the signed easement documents and will immediately start the surveys. We have also passed information received from Madison County Telephone Company to McClelland for their architect to draft the plans for the construction hut. This will be a concrete block building on a poured slab with reinforced metal roof, designed hopefully to survive a tornado strike.
b. Fort Smith/UA Fort Smith: We are working on our fifth or sixth redesign of the fiber route to UAFS as a result of the restriction AT&T placed on our use of their manholes and conduit into the MBO POP in downtown Fort Smith. Scott Ramoly and CT&T drove the possible routes for the Midland Blvd. bridge splice point, and none of them looked feasible or economical. As a result, we are now working on use of a Cox splice point under the Garrison Ave. bridge. The benefit of this route is that it uses much of the original south route that CT&T did for us weeks ago. The north route comes off a splice point on 6th Street between P and Division Streets and looks good. The city engineer claimed that we would need a city franchise agreement, but CT&T is almost certain that we will not since this is a state-funded project. They will be conferring with Fort Smith city officials to confirm.
c. Russellville/Arkansas Tech University: We are awaiting final approval of the right-of-way along the I-40 controlled access highway before we can have CT&T complete their design of the fiber routes into the ATU campus. Suddenlink will also be providing an estimate for an alternative to the east route.
d. Conway/University of Central Arkansas: Conway Corp has indicated that they will be willing to work with us on builds and use of existing fiber and rights of way. We have a meeting scheduled with them on November 10 during which they should provide us with information on what they can and are willing to do.
e. North Little Rock/Level3 POP: Preliminary route selection is complete. We are awaiting final approval of the right-of-way along I-40 and I-30 controlled access highway before CT&T can complete the final route design.
f. Pine Bluff/UA Pine Bluff: Preliminary route selection is complete. We have a meeting scheduled for November 11 with WEHCO Cable on possible use of their fiber in Pine Bluff for one of our routes to the campus. The fiber builds in Pine Bluff are expensive and use of WEHCO fiber could bring that project’s cost down significantly.
g. Monticello/UA Monticello: CT&T has nearly completed the surveying and drafting of this route and should have it ready for construction very soon.
h. Arkadelphia/Henderson State University: The preliminary route selection is complete. CT&T has nearly completed survey and drafting of the north route and is wrapping up the work on the south route. The south route requires a short stretch of access along I-30, which is waiting for the AHTD permit along controlled access highway. Suddenlink will also be submitting an estimate for an alternative to the south route using some of their existing fiber that may be less expensive.
i. Magnolia/Southern Arkansas University: CT&T has agreed to facilitate a meeting with the companies that we may be able to use to procure fiber between Monticello and Magnolia. This meeting will probably take place the first week in December.
j. Little Rock/UALR/UAMS: CT&T has completed a preliminary route design and estimate for a route between two Level3 splice points in Little Rock through the UALR and UAMS campuses. In the event we are unable to use the TWTC fiber in Little Rock, this could be a viable route for connecting these two campuses.
k. Monroe/University of Louisiana – We are awaiting the MOU with LONI before we can proceed with this project.
9. NOC: We made no progress on this project.
10. DIS Peering: We still plan to work with DIS on migrating their Fayetteville connection to the new MX960 router.
11. SAU Magnolia DNS: Steven Karp continues to assist SAU Magnolia in setting up their own public-facing primary DNS server on campus rather than relying on their commodity Internet provider.
12. OneNet: Mike Abbiatti, Bob Zimmerman, and I had a videoconference with OneNet on November 5 during which we discussed continued membership in the Great Plains Network. Current plans are for Bob Zimmerman to give the six-month advance notice of discontinuing membership in GPN. The real intent of this is to get GPN to clarify with us the membership requirements for Arkansas’s continued use of the OneNet link and direct peering with GPN and Internet2.
13. Campus Visits: Mike Abbiatti and Steven Karp will be traveling to Northwestern State University with Arkansas Tech University in the second of the campus visits that Mike is planning. The intent is to match ARE-ON member campuses with similar campuses in other states having an established regional optical network where they can exchange information on applications.
14. Training: Scott Ramoly will be attending a class on him outside plant cabling in Albuquerque November 17-21. This class will be key to the construction of our fiber hut in Alma and will also be useful for producing the detailed site preparation documents that we will append to the collocation agreements with our member campuses.
-David Merrifield, Chief Technology Officer
Arkansas Research and Education Optical Network
1. ADVA DWDM equipment: A protest was filed in the award of the DWDM equipment RFP. The November 12 hearing scheduled with State Procurement was postponed to November 17.
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 have had no further updates from the Little Rock city attorney on the TWTC agreement. He had planned a conference call with TWTC on October 30, but we have no word on the outcome of the call. The major outstanding issue was usage restrictions for our use of the TWTC metro fiber.
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 and have a draft ready to go back to him this week.
5. Suddenlink: We are awaiting a new estimate from Suddenlink for a fiber route in Arkadelphia that might displace our need to build the southern route to the HSU campus. Also, Suddenlink said they would provide an estimate for an alternative to our eastern route in Russellville to the ATU campus.
6. McLeod/OneNet/Tulsa: This project is on hold pending the outcome the Alma project (below). All indications are that we will not need any additional fiber in Tulsa and can ask OneNet for a refund of an IRU for cross-town fiber to reach their demarc at the OSU Tulsa campus.
7. Juniper Routers: Steven Karp had originally planned to move the UAF Juniper M10 router from the Force10 router to the Fayetteville Juniper MX960 on November 6, but he encountered a BGP problem while testing the configuration in our lab that caused a postponement. He and I have still not been able to identify the source of the problem. This makes the third major problem with the MX960 routers since their acquisition this summer.
8. Fiber Laterals Engineering: Of the five companies who responded to the newspaper advertisement for a construction manager, four have agreed to come to Fayetteville for the interviews scheduled to take place on November 14. The fifth company withdrew because they were more interested in the actual construction than construction management.
We have had several conversations with AHTD personnel regarding our request for use of right-of-way along controlled access highways. AHTD’s policy restricts these permits to utilities only, so we are continuing to work with them on a waiver of the policy. These permits are critical to our ability to build our lateral fibers to our member campuses. Until we reach resolution, CT&T will be unable to complete the survey and drafting work necessary to begin construction.
Here are brief status updates on each of the fiber lateral projects:
a. Alma/MBO: CT&T has obtained verbal agreement for all of the easements necessary for the fiber build and fiber hut construction. They are securing the signed easement documents and will immediately start the surveys. We have also passed information received from Madison County Telephone Company to McClelland for their architect to draft the plans for the construction hut. This will be a concrete block building on a poured slab with reinforced metal roof, designed hopefully to survive a tornado strike.
b. Fort Smith/UA Fort Smith: We are working on our fifth or sixth redesign of the fiber route to UAFS as a result of the restriction AT&T placed on our use of their manholes and conduit into the MBO POP in downtown Fort Smith. Scott Ramoly and CT&T drove the possible routes for the Midland Blvd. bridge splice point, and none of them looked feasible or economical. As a result, we are now working on use of a Cox splice point under the Garrison Ave. bridge. The benefit of this route is that it uses much of the original south route that CT&T did for us weeks ago. The north route comes off a splice point on 6th Street between P and Division Streets and looks good. The city engineer claimed that we would need a city franchise agreement, but CT&T is almost certain that we will not since this is a state-funded project. They will be conferring with Fort Smith city officials to confirm.
c. Russellville/Arkansas Tech University: We are awaiting final approval of the right-of-way along the I-40 controlled access highway before we can have CT&T complete their design of the fiber routes into the ATU campus. Suddenlink will also be providing an estimate for an alternative to the east route.
d. Conway/University of Central Arkansas: Conway Corp has indicated that they will be willing to work with us on builds and use of existing fiber and rights of way. We have a meeting scheduled with them on November 10 during which they should provide us with information on what they can and are willing to do.
e. North Little Rock/Level3 POP: Preliminary route selection is complete. We are awaiting final approval of the right-of-way along I-40 and I-30 controlled access highway before CT&T can complete the final route design.
f. Pine Bluff/UA Pine Bluff: Preliminary route selection is complete. We have a meeting scheduled for November 11 with WEHCO Cable on possible use of their fiber in Pine Bluff for one of our routes to the campus. The fiber builds in Pine Bluff are expensive and use of WEHCO fiber could bring that project’s cost down significantly.
g. Monticello/UA Monticello: CT&T has nearly completed the surveying and drafting of this route and should have it ready for construction very soon.
h. Arkadelphia/Henderson State University: The preliminary route selection is complete. CT&T has nearly completed survey and drafting of the north route and is wrapping up the work on the south route. The south route requires a short stretch of access along I-30, which is waiting for the AHTD permit along controlled access highway. Suddenlink will also be submitting an estimate for an alternative to the south route using some of their existing fiber that may be less expensive.
i. Magnolia/Southern Arkansas University: CT&T has agreed to facilitate a meeting with the companies that we may be able to use to procure fiber between Monticello and Magnolia. This meeting will probably take place the first week in December.
j. Little Rock/UALR/UAMS: CT&T has completed a preliminary route design and estimate for a route between two Level3 splice points in Little Rock through the UALR and UAMS campuses. In the event we are unable to use the TWTC fiber in Little Rock, this could be a viable route for connecting these two campuses.
k. Monroe/University of Louisiana – We are awaiting the MOU with LONI before we can proceed with this project.
9. NOC: We made no progress on this project.
10. DIS Peering: We still plan to work with DIS on migrating their Fayetteville connection to the new MX960 router.
11. SAU Magnolia DNS: Steven Karp continues to assist SAU Magnolia in setting up their own public-facing primary DNS server on campus rather than relying on their commodity Internet provider.
12. OneNet: Mike Abbiatti, Bob Zimmerman, and I had a videoconference with OneNet on November 5 during which we discussed continued membership in the Great Plains Network. Current plans are for Bob Zimmerman to give the six-month advance notice of discontinuing membership in GPN. The real intent of this is to get GPN to clarify with us the membership requirements for Arkansas’s continued use of the OneNet link and direct peering with GPN and Internet2.
13. Campus Visits: Mike Abbiatti and Steven Karp will be traveling to Northwestern State University with Arkansas Tech University in the second of the campus visits that Mike is planning. The intent is to match ARE-ON member campuses with similar campuses in other states having an established regional optical network where they can exchange information on applications.
14. Training: Scott Ramoly will be attending a class on him outside plant cabling in Albuquerque November 17-21. This class will be key to the construction of our fiber hut in Alma and will also be useful for producing the detailed site preparation documents that we will append to the collocation agreements with our member campuses.
-David Merrifield, Chief Technology Officer
Arkansas Research and Education Optical Network
Monday, November 3, 2008
Status Report - 3 November 2008
Here is the ARE-ON status report for November 3, 2008:
1. ADVA DWDM equipment: A protest was filed in the award of the DWDM equipment RFP. Substantial time was spent this past week in preparing the response.
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: A draft of the agreement between the City and TWTC was reviewed during a meeting of the Little Rock dark fiber users group on October 29. Most remaining issues are resolved, but one very important one concerning acceptable use of the fiber remained. The city attorney planned to have a meeting with TWTC later in the week during which he felt confident that they could come to a satisfactory resolution, but we have no word of the outcome of this meeting.
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: No new developments. Suddenlink contacted me to forward alternative proposals for fiber builds in four of our cities, including Russellville, Arkadelphia, Magnolia, and Jonesboro-to-Biscoe. In each case Suddenlink proposed a combination of underground and aerial fiber, with use of some existing fiber in their plant. The Jonesboro and Magnolia routes are of little interest to us. In Russellville we favor the routes planned by CT&T, primarily due to both being underground rather than aerial. The same is true of one of the routes in Arkadelphia. Suddenlink is preparing a new proposal for the second route in Arkadelphia and possibly one of the routes in Russellville.
6. McLeod/OneNet/Tulsa: This project is on hold pending the outcome the Alma project (below). All indications are that we will not need any additional fiber in Tulsa and can ask OneNet for a refund of an IRU for cross-town fiber to reach their demarc at the OSU Tulsa campus.
7. Juniper Routers: We had one unplanned outage on the Fayetteville MX960 router around midnight on the morning of October 30. The router had an unusually high CPU utilization that stopped or substantially reduced packet forwarding. Steven Karp opened a trouble ticket with Juniper TAC after clearing the condition. Unfortunately, little information could be gleaned after the incident to give us insight into its cause.
Steven also had another trouble ticket opened earlier with JTAC regarding the BGP localpref problem previously reported. Juniper identified the problem as having been created when they implemented non-stop routing in the MX platform and will have a fix in an upcoming release of the JUNOS software. In the meantime we will disable non-stop routing on the MX960 to get the localpref functionality we need.
8. Fiber Laterals Engineering: Five companies submitted responses to the newspaper advertisement for construction manager. A meeting is scheduled on Monday, November 3, to select the short list of companies to invite in for interview. The weekly project status meeting with McClelland Consultant Engineers and CT&T normally scheduled each Friday morning was postponed to coincide with the Monday meeting. As a result we do not have updates on the progress that CT&T has made with the fiber routes planning, and the updates below may be a little dated.
Mike Abbiatti met with Dan Flowers, director of the Arkansas Highway and Transportation Department, to initiate the request for use of right-of-way along controlled access highways. Following the meeting I contacted AHTD and supplied maps of the routes we needed. AHTD initially indicated that their policy restricts right-of-way permits to utilities only, but they have taken our request to their management for consideration.
a. Alma/MBO: CT&T has obtained verbal agreement from property owners between the MBO and McLeod splice points for easements that will permit construction of a fiber hut where we can install our ROADM equipment. Still pending are easements on the private side of the fence to the McLeod splice point, and one of the two fiber routes to the Cox/MBO splice point.
b. Fort Smith/UA Fort Smith: After AT&T denied access into their manhole and conduit at the MBO POP in downtown Fort Smith, Scott Ramoly met with Cox and MBO to identify alternative splice points. One splice point north of the POP was found and okayed by Cox for our use, but the second splice point that Cox had on their maps unfortunately did not exist. They identified another splice point near the Midland Ave. bridge just south of its crossing over the Arkansas River. Scott plans a meeting this week with CT&T in Fort Smith to do route planning for both of these routes.
c. Russellville/Arkansas Tech University: We are awaiting final approval of the right-of-way along the I-40 controlled access highway before we can have CT&T complete their design of the fiber routes into the ATU campus.
d. Conway/University of Central Arkansas: We had a meeting on October 20 with Conway Corp during which we discussed their possible involvement in building fiber into the UCA campus. They are looking into building the northern route (mostly aerial) and a possible southern route that uses SCADA fiber that they manage for the electric utility. Our alternative for a completely buried southern route would require that we build it ourselves. Another meeting is planned, but not scheduled.
e. North Little Rock/Level3 POP: Preliminary route selection is complete. We are awaiting final approval of the right-of-way along I-40 and I-30 controlled access highway before CT&T can complete the final route design.
f. Pine Bluff/UA Pine Bluff: Preliminary route selection is complete. However, we believe that WEHCO Cable may be able to supply at least one of the routes. I will be scheduling a meeting with them.
g. Monticello/UA Monticello: Preliminary route selection is complete. CT&T has been working on the final route design.
h. Arkadelphia/Henderson State University: The preliminary route selection is complete. CT&T has begun route measurements. We are awaiting final approval of the right-of-way along I-30 controlled access highway before CT&T can complete the final route design.
i. Magnolia/Southern Arkansas University: CT&T has agreed to facilitate a meeting with the companies that we may be able to use to procure fiber between Monticello and Magnolia. This meeting has not been scheduled yet.
j. Little Rock/UALR/UAMS: CT&T has completed a preliminary route design and estimate for a route between two Level3 splice points in Little Rock through the UALR and UAMS campuses. In the event we are unable to use the TWTC fiber in Little Rock, this could be a viable route for connecting these two campuses.
k. Monroe/University of Louisiana – Mike Abbiatti will be meeting with Charlie McMahon of LONI to develop the MOU we need between our respective RONs. We should be able to use the LONI/Mississippi MOU as a starting point.
9. NOC: We made no progress on this project.
10. DIS Peering: We still plan to work with DIS on migrating their Fayetteville connection to the new MX960 router.
11. SAU Magnolia DNS: Steven Karp continues to assist SAU Magnolia in setting up their own public-facing primary DNS server on campus rather than relying on their commodity Internet provider.
12. HPC: Steven Karp traveled to Jonesboro on October 21-22 to discuss High Performance Computing, mass storage, and how ARE-ON may be able to facilitate statewide needs for these resources. Following the trip Steven was able to assist the HPC group in Fayetteville on improving file transfer speeds. We anticipate continued need to assist groups at our campuses on network performance issues that appear at the application level.
13. Madison County Telephone: We met with representatives of the Madison County Telephone Company in Huntsville on October 23 to tour one of their self-constructed fiber huts. We have received specifications on a hut and plan to use these as a possible design for the fiber hut that we will need to build in Alma.
14. Training: Scott Ramoly attended ADVA training in Norcross, GA, last week. We will also be sending him to an outside cabling plant course in Albuquerque November 17-21.
-David Merrifield, Chief Technology Officer
Arkansas Research and Education Optical Network
1. ADVA DWDM equipment: A protest was filed in the award of the DWDM equipment RFP. Substantial time was spent this past week in preparing the response.
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: A draft of the agreement between the City and TWTC was reviewed during a meeting of the Little Rock dark fiber users group on October 29. Most remaining issues are resolved, but one very important one concerning acceptable use of the fiber remained. The city attorney planned to have a meeting with TWTC later in the week during which he felt confident that they could come to a satisfactory resolution, but we have no word of the outcome of this meeting.
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: No new developments. Suddenlink contacted me to forward alternative proposals for fiber builds in four of our cities, including Russellville, Arkadelphia, Magnolia, and Jonesboro-to-Biscoe. In each case Suddenlink proposed a combination of underground and aerial fiber, with use of some existing fiber in their plant. The Jonesboro and Magnolia routes are of little interest to us. In Russellville we favor the routes planned by CT&T, primarily due to both being underground rather than aerial. The same is true of one of the routes in Arkadelphia. Suddenlink is preparing a new proposal for the second route in Arkadelphia and possibly one of the routes in Russellville.
6. McLeod/OneNet/Tulsa: This project is on hold pending the outcome the Alma project (below). All indications are that we will not need any additional fiber in Tulsa and can ask OneNet for a refund of an IRU for cross-town fiber to reach their demarc at the OSU Tulsa campus.
7. Juniper Routers: We had one unplanned outage on the Fayetteville MX960 router around midnight on the morning of October 30. The router had an unusually high CPU utilization that stopped or substantially reduced packet forwarding. Steven Karp opened a trouble ticket with Juniper TAC after clearing the condition. Unfortunately, little information could be gleaned after the incident to give us insight into its cause.
Steven also had another trouble ticket opened earlier with JTAC regarding the BGP localpref problem previously reported. Juniper identified the problem as having been created when they implemented non-stop routing in the MX platform and will have a fix in an upcoming release of the JUNOS software. In the meantime we will disable non-stop routing on the MX960 to get the localpref functionality we need.
8. Fiber Laterals Engineering: Five companies submitted responses to the newspaper advertisement for construction manager. A meeting is scheduled on Monday, November 3, to select the short list of companies to invite in for interview. The weekly project status meeting with McClelland Consultant Engineers and CT&T normally scheduled each Friday morning was postponed to coincide with the Monday meeting. As a result we do not have updates on the progress that CT&T has made with the fiber routes planning, and the updates below may be a little dated.
Mike Abbiatti met with Dan Flowers, director of the Arkansas Highway and Transportation Department, to initiate the request for use of right-of-way along controlled access highways. Following the meeting I contacted AHTD and supplied maps of the routes we needed. AHTD initially indicated that their policy restricts right-of-way permits to utilities only, but they have taken our request to their management for consideration.
a. Alma/MBO: CT&T has obtained verbal agreement from property owners between the MBO and McLeod splice points for easements that will permit construction of a fiber hut where we can install our ROADM equipment. Still pending are easements on the private side of the fence to the McLeod splice point, and one of the two fiber routes to the Cox/MBO splice point.
b. Fort Smith/UA Fort Smith: After AT&T denied access into their manhole and conduit at the MBO POP in downtown Fort Smith, Scott Ramoly met with Cox and MBO to identify alternative splice points. One splice point north of the POP was found and okayed by Cox for our use, but the second splice point that Cox had on their maps unfortunately did not exist. They identified another splice point near the Midland Ave. bridge just south of its crossing over the Arkansas River. Scott plans a meeting this week with CT&T in Fort Smith to do route planning for both of these routes.
c. Russellville/Arkansas Tech University: We are awaiting final approval of the right-of-way along the I-40 controlled access highway before we can have CT&T complete their design of the fiber routes into the ATU campus.
d. Conway/University of Central Arkansas: We had a meeting on October 20 with Conway Corp during which we discussed their possible involvement in building fiber into the UCA campus. They are looking into building the northern route (mostly aerial) and a possible southern route that uses SCADA fiber that they manage for the electric utility. Our alternative for a completely buried southern route would require that we build it ourselves. Another meeting is planned, but not scheduled.
e. North Little Rock/Level3 POP: Preliminary route selection is complete. We are awaiting final approval of the right-of-way along I-40 and I-30 controlled access highway before CT&T can complete the final route design.
f. Pine Bluff/UA Pine Bluff: Preliminary route selection is complete. However, we believe that WEHCO Cable may be able to supply at least one of the routes. I will be scheduling a meeting with them.
g. Monticello/UA Monticello: Preliminary route selection is complete. CT&T has been working on the final route design.
h. Arkadelphia/Henderson State University: The preliminary route selection is complete. CT&T has begun route measurements. We are awaiting final approval of the right-of-way along I-30 controlled access highway before CT&T can complete the final route design.
i. Magnolia/Southern Arkansas University: CT&T has agreed to facilitate a meeting with the companies that we may be able to use to procure fiber between Monticello and Magnolia. This meeting has not been scheduled yet.
j. Little Rock/UALR/UAMS: CT&T has completed a preliminary route design and estimate for a route between two Level3 splice points in Little Rock through the UALR and UAMS campuses. In the event we are unable to use the TWTC fiber in Little Rock, this could be a viable route for connecting these two campuses.
k. Monroe/University of Louisiana – Mike Abbiatti will be meeting with Charlie McMahon of LONI to develop the MOU we need between our respective RONs. We should be able to use the LONI/Mississippi MOU as a starting point.
9. NOC: We made no progress on this project.
10. DIS Peering: We still plan to work with DIS on migrating their Fayetteville connection to the new MX960 router.
11. SAU Magnolia DNS: Steven Karp continues to assist SAU Magnolia in setting up their own public-facing primary DNS server on campus rather than relying on their commodity Internet provider.
12. HPC: Steven Karp traveled to Jonesboro on October 21-22 to discuss High Performance Computing, mass storage, and how ARE-ON may be able to facilitate statewide needs for these resources. Following the trip Steven was able to assist the HPC group in Fayetteville on improving file transfer speeds. We anticipate continued need to assist groups at our campuses on network performance issues that appear at the application level.
13. Madison County Telephone: We met with representatives of the Madison County Telephone Company in Huntsville on October 23 to tour one of their self-constructed fiber huts. We have received specifications on a hut and plan to use these as a possible design for the fiber hut that we will need to build in Alma.
14. Training: Scott Ramoly attended ADVA training in Norcross, GA, last week. We will also be sending him to an outside cabling plant course in Albuquerque November 17-21.
-David Merrifield, Chief Technology Officer
Arkansas Research and Education Optical Network
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