Here is the ARE-ON status report for January 26, 2009:
1. ADVA DWDM equipment: We have had several conference calls with ADVA regarding overall changes in the network design that accommodates changes in the design as a result of several factors, including more efficient use of the equipment that we purchased and relocation of equipment originally planned for sites in Little Rock/North Little Rock that are no longer going to be used. We also have completed the network design for UA Fort Smith and Alma, and were very pleased that the equipment purchased in the original RFP, plus a few parts trade-ins, has resulted in the ability to equip the Fort Smith/Alma sites and light all the way to Dallas at no additional cost.
Steven Karp and Scott Ramoly have been studying the power requirements for each of our sites where we will be installing rectifiers and batteries (generally, at the various university campuses). They are currently focusing on the Eltek Valere FLATPACK2 system. This equipment will actually be purchased and deployed by ADVA as a part of their installation related materials.
This week Scott and Steven are traveling the state with ADVA planners, doing site visits at every location where ADVA equipment will be placed, including campuses, carrier colocation facilities, etc. The information gathered from these sites visits will be correlated for the ADVA project kickoff meeting scheduled for February 10.
2. Little Rock/Monroe IRU: We have initiated the process for acquiring this IRU from Paetec/McLeod. I have a conference call scheduled for tomorrow morning during which we will go over any last-minute details before completing the quotation and final paperwork.
3. McLeod/Paetec: Along with the IRU agreement for the Little Rock/Monroe route, we are finalizing the colocation agreements for Ozark, North Little Rock, and Hamburg where we will have to install DWDM and routing equipment. We have also requested formal permission to use select splice points in the Alma, Russellville, Conway, North Little Rock, Pine Bluff, and Monticello.
4. Level3: We were able to obtain our entry badges for the Level3 colocation facilities this past week. Level3 has granted us unescorted access into all of the areas where our equipment will be located except Dallas. Dallas requires additional security requiring each of our engineers will to visit in person before we can get the unescorted access we need there.
5. Little Rock/Time Warner Telecom: We have no updates beyond the discussions with the City two weeks ago about further tweaks to the agreement language.
6. Ritter/Jonesboro: The Ritter dark fiber capacity agreement is currently under review by the UA legal counsel.
7. Suddenlink: We feel that the Suddenlink proposals for the south route to HSU in Arkadelphia and the route from Magnolia to Guernsey are going to be our best prospects for completing those routes economically. I will be contacting Suddenlink to get a final proposal and draft agreement to us this week.
8. McLeod/OneNet/Tulsa: We are going to cancel any work for tying the Tulsa end of the McLeod fiber to OneNet.
9. Juniper Routers: The fix for a problem that we thought was included in the 9.3R2 JUNOS code for our MX960 routes apparently did not make it into the code. There were several problems with non-stop routing that were to be fixed in that release, but the BGP soft reset issue still remains. We are awaiting the release of 9.3R3 where we have been assured the fix will appear.
Also, an attempt to bring the UARK MX960 into full production on January 18th was not fully successful due to a problem with the UARK border firewall. We were able to establish the eBGP sessions as anticipated, but the firewall was blocking traffic unexpectedly. We will make another attempt at a later date in coordination with the UARK network team.
10. Fiber Laterals Engineering: The UA Board of Trustees met on January 16 and approved the selection of the McClelland Consulting Engineers/CT&T team as the engineering company for our fiber laterals construction project and the selection of CDI as the construction manager. These approvals are pending review by the Legislative Council, which is scheduled to meeting February 4. In the meantime, we have been working with McClelland since last fall and CDI for several weeks and have a plan for releasing the construction RFQs and the actual construction at each of our target cities. We are pressing to have all of our fiber constructed by June 15, although due to the continued delays in getting the Time Warner Telecom agreement in place it is likely that the Little Rock construction may not be completed until some time in August. The UA Board of Trustees also approved a resolution that enables us to handle easement approvals through the UA System Office more expeditiously.
Here are brief status updates on each of the fiber lateral projects:
a. Alma/MBO: The five easements for the Alma area should have been signed by this time, but one of those requires a slight modification and we are awaiting a new signature from the property owner. The network design, including final prints, has been completed. Final last-minute changes are in progress for the small building that we will be constructing that the location to house a DWDM ROADM between the juncture of the MBO and McLeod longhaul fibers that are being brought into the building. We are awaiting approval from Paetec to use the splice point on their fiber along I-40. We are also awaiting approval from MBO to use a splice point along US64. This project will require relocation of equipment from the existing MBO ILA site in Chester.
b. Fort Smith/UA Fort Smith: The final prints for the two routes to UAFS have been completed. CT&T discovered that we will have to obtain at least one small easement, possibly two, at the Cox splice point near the Garrison Avenue bridge. We have a pending request to MBO and Cox for permission to use their splice points. We also have two pending requests for railroad permits. This project will require relocation of equipment from the existing MBO POP in downtown Fort Smith to the UAFS campus. Scott Ramoly is planning the site visit at UAFS for this Wednesday.
c. Russellville/Arkansas Tech University: The final prints for the two routes to ATU have been completed. We are pending approval from Paetec to use the two splice points on their fiber along I-40. Scott Ramoly is planning the site visit at ATU for this Tuesday.
d. Conway/University of Central Arkansas: Conway Corp has agreed to build a portion of the northern route to the UCA campus. We will have to build a short amount of fiber to connect to the McLeod splice point near the intersection of I-40 and Skyline Drive and at the other end of the cable to connect to the campus. The agreement with Conway Corp is currently under review by our legal counsel. CT&T has been directed to engineer the southern route to connect the campus to the McLeod splice point along I-40 south of Dave Ward Drive. We are still awaiting the preliminary route design prints for both of these routes in Conway. Scott Ramoly is planning the site visit for UCA for this Tuesday.
e. North Little Rock/Level3 POP: We have decided to not build the two routes from the McLeod fiber along I-40 into the Level3 POP. Although, once the Time Warner Telecom agreement is in place, we will have to build a route from the Level3 POP to a suitable splice point on the TWTC fiber in the North Little Rock area. We have not yet begun design of this route since we are currently restricted from talking with TWTC directly until the agreement is finalized. Scott Ramoly is planning a site visit for the Level3 POP in North Little Rock for today.
f. North Little Rock/McLeod POP: CT&T is working on the draft prints for this route, which replaces the two routes we had originally planned for joining the McLeod and Level3 long-haul fibers at the Level3 POP. It is a single short build along state highway right-of-way with a short segment that McLeod will provide into their splice point at the intersection of I-40 and I-440. We have decided that the McLeod POP will house our Juniper core router and an ADVA ROADM. We anticipate needing a single easement to cross private property to reach the McLeod POP, but the easement research is still pending. Scott Ramoly is planning a site visit at the McLeod POP in North Little Rock for Wednesday. We are awaiting approval from Level3 to use the single splice point on their fiber along I-40 near the McLeod POP.
g. Pine Bluff/UA Pine Bluff: CT&T is working on the draft prints for the northern route into the UAPB campus. An agreement with WEHCO Video for a separate southern route is still pending. Steven Karp is planning a site visit at UAPB for today. We are awaiting permission from McLeod to use the single splice point in the Pine Bluff area.
h. Monticello/UA Monticello: The route prints for Monticello are finalized. Steven Karp is planning a site visit at UAM and the McLeod ILA site at Hamburg for today. We are awaiting permission from McLeod to use the two splice points in the Monticello area.
i. Arkadelphia/Henderson State University: We are still awaiting draft draft prints of the northern route from CT&T. The contact with Suddenlink about the southern route is still pending. Level3 has given us preliminary estimates for the cost of building off their splice point near the intersection of I-30 and Country Club Road. Scott Ramoly is planning a site visit at HSU for Thursday
j. Magnolia/Southern Arkansas University: The contact with Suddenlink about building a route from the Level3 POP near Guernsey to the SAU campus in Magnolia is still pending. Steven Karp is planning a site visit at SAU for today.
k. Little Rock/UALR/UAMS: Our understanding is that the Time Warner Telecom agreement with the City of Little Rock is very near resolution. Until we have an opportunity to talk with TWTC engineers about their metro fiber we are unable to do any further planning for Little Rock. Scott Ramoly is planning a site visit at UALR for today and at UAMS on Wednesday.
l. Monroe/University of Louisiana – We are awaiting the MOU with LONI before we can proceed with this project.
11. 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.
12. Commodity Internet: We have talked informally with Qwest, Level3, and AT&T about commodity Internet services. Now that we are planning to light the route to Dallas, we have many more options for CIS than before. We plan to put out a RFI to gather information about which companies can provide services and where their points of access are.
13. NOC: We made no progress on this project.
14. DIS Peering: We still plan to work with DIS on migrating their Fayetteville connection to the new MX960 router.
15. Fiber Testing Tools: Steven Karp and Scott Ramoly have been looking at fiber testing equipment, including OTDR, loss measurement, dispersion compensation, and Ethernet testing. EXFO has come highly recommended, and they have the product to meet our needs. They are not inexpensive, however, so we are being careful to evaluate real needs vs. nice-to-have functionality.
-David Merrifield, Chief Technology Officer
Arkansas Research and Education Optical Network
Monday, January 26, 2009
Monday, January 12, 2009
Status Report - January 12, 2009
Here is the ARE-ON status report for January 12, 2009:
1. ADVA DWDM equipment: The State Procurement Office completed its review of the ADVA DWDM equipment acquisition and ARE-ON is cleared to proceed with the shipment and installation of the equipment. We have begun meetings with ADVA on the actual final network design. Numerous changes in fiber routing and where we want to host our services have taken place since the initial RFP was released in March 2008. Last week we had a conference call with ADVA and learned that with a small amount of swapping equipment, we can do a lot more with the equipment already acquired than originally planned. This is good news to us since it enables to us add sites that were outside the scope of the RFP with no additional cost for the equipment, including Fort Smith and Alma, but also enabling us to light the path all the way to Dallas if we choose. We are currently working with ADVA on the final equipment list so that we can get the parts shipped as necessary. We are also working with ADVA on the early shipment and installation of the equipment racks for the campus sites where we will be building fiber. We need the racks in place in order to install the fiber patch panels that the construction contractors will build when the fiber laterals are completed.
2. Little Rock/Monroe IRU: We will wrap up the agreement with Paetec/McLeod on this route this week.
3. Little Rock/Time Warner Telecom: We heard late last week that this agreement is very close to completion.
4. Ritter/Jonesboro: The Ritter dark fiber capacity agreement is currently under review by the UA legal counsel.
5. Suddenlink: We feel that the Suddenlink proposals for the south route to HSU in Arkadelphia and the route from Magnolia to Guernsey are going to be our best prospects for completing those routes economically. I will be contacting Suddenlink to get a final proposal and draft agreement to us this week.
6. McLeod/OneNet/Tulsa: We are going to cancel any work for tying the Tulsa end of the McLeod fiber to OneNet.
7. Juniper Routers: Juniper delivered the fix to our non-stop routing problem in the latest release of their JUNOS operating system. Steven installed this version in the Fayetteville M960 on January 2, 2009.
8. Fiber Laterals Engineering: The approval of our selection of the construction manager is still pending. The UA Board of Trustees is meeting this Friday, January 16, and the approval is on their agenda. Also, the selection must receive approval by the Legislative Council before a contract can be signed. The next meeting of the Legislative Council is February 20. Delays in these approvals have made our construction timeline extremely tight. However, at this point, we are still pushing to have construction completed by June 15, 2009. This will give us time to get the optical network installed and tested, then build the Layer 2 & 3 backbone infrastructure and the links to the campuses to hopefully have our campuses operational by the time the Fall 2009 semester starts.
Here are brief status updates on each of the fiber lateral projects:
a. Alma/MBO: The signed easements are awaiting approval by the UA System Office and Board of Trustees for approval. A proposal is being placed before the BoT that will enable easements to be expedited through UA System Office approval and just follow-up reporting to the BoT afterwards. McClelland Engineering and GA Engineering has issued draft prints for the fiber hut to be constructed, and these are under review by the ARE-ON staff. The fiber construction prints are also under review by ARE-ON staff.
b. Fort Smith/UA Fort Smith: ARE-ON staff has reviewed the draft prints for the two routes to the campus, and CT&T is working on final drawings. We have a pending request to MBO and Cox for permission to use their splice points. We also have two pending requests for railroad permits. The UA legal counsel issued an opinion that the University is not subject to city franchises due to status as a state entity.
c. Russellville/Arkansas Tech University: CT&T has completed the draft prints for the two routes to the ATU campus. Both sets are currently under review by the ARE-ON staff. Of note is McLeod/Paetec reversing an earlier decision to now allow ARE-ON to build to the mid-span splice point along I-40 nearest the campus on the south route. This saves ARE-ON substantial cost in not having to extend that fiber several miles to the next available splice point east of Weir Road.
d. Conway/University of Central Arkansas: Conway Corp has agreed to build a portion of the northern route to the UCA campus. We will have to build a short amount of fiber to connect to the McLeod splice point near the intersection of I-40 and Skyline Drive and at the other end of the cable to connect to the campus. The agreement with Conway Corp is currently under review by our legal counsel. CT&T has been directed to engineer the southern route to connect the campus to the McLeod splice point along I-40 south of Dave Ward Drive.
e. North Little Rock/Level3 POP: We have decided to not build the two routes from the McLeod fiber along I-40 into the Level3 POP.
f. North Little Rock/McLeod POP: CT&T is working on the draft prints for this route, which replaces the two routes we had originally planned for joining the McLeod and Level3 long-haul fibers at the Level3 POP. It is a single short build along state highway right-of-way with a short segment that McLeod will provide into their splice point at the intersection of I-40 and I-440. We have decided that the McLeod POP will house our Juniper core router and an ADVA ROADM. We anticipate needing a single easement to cross private property to reach the McLeod POP, but the easement research is still pending.
g. Pine Bluff/UA Pine Bluff: CT&T is working on the draft prints for the northern route into the UAPB campus. An agreement with WEHCO Video for a separate southern route is still pending.
h. Monticello/UA Monticello: ARE-ON staff has reviewed the draft prints for both the northern and southern routes to the UAM campus and returned them to CT&T for revisions and finalization.
i. Arkadelphia/Henderson State University: CT&T will issue draft prints of the northern route next week for ARE-ON’s review. We have decided to get a formal proposal from Suddenlink for the southern route. Suddenlink’s fiber will be predominantly aerial, but will be substantially less expensive than if we were to building it ourselves. Level3 has given us preliminary estimates for the cost of building off their splice point near the intersection of I-30 and Country Club Road.
j. Magnolia/Southern Arkansas University: We have decided to get a formal proposal from Suddenlink to build fiber from the Level3 POP near Guernsey and the SAU campus in Magnolia. We do not think that we can put together an eastern route to Monticello in a short timeframe or that would cost us less than what Suddenlink has proposed. Our desire to find a lower-cost route to the east out of Magnolia using fiber from multiple providers does not look promising at this point.
k. Little Rock/UALR/UAMS: Our understanding is that the Time Warner Telecom agreement with the City of Little Rock is very near resolution. We have an alternative plan in place that will require construction of our own fiber to UALR and UAMS, but at significant cost. We are anxious to get this deal completed so that we can start the route design work needed to tie the two campuses into the rest of the backbone fiber.
l. 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: We have received clearance to put out a RFI for commodity Internet service, which we plan to do in the month of January. Germane to the discussion are not just bandwidth costs, but also the cost of local loops, backhaul, and possible colocation. The Quilt providers all offer very promising rates and free backhaul with certain restrictions. However, our understanding is that the market has grown increasingly competitive, thereby offering us other choices beyond just the Quilt providers. A RFI will help us get the information to know how to proceed with contracting for Commodity Internet services for 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.
-David Merrifield, Chief Technology Officer
Arkansas Research and Education Optical Network
1. ADVA DWDM equipment: The State Procurement Office completed its review of the ADVA DWDM equipment acquisition and ARE-ON is cleared to proceed with the shipment and installation of the equipment. We have begun meetings with ADVA on the actual final network design. Numerous changes in fiber routing and where we want to host our services have taken place since the initial RFP was released in March 2008. Last week we had a conference call with ADVA and learned that with a small amount of swapping equipment, we can do a lot more with the equipment already acquired than originally planned. This is good news to us since it enables to us add sites that were outside the scope of the RFP with no additional cost for the equipment, including Fort Smith and Alma, but also enabling us to light the path all the way to Dallas if we choose. We are currently working with ADVA on the final equipment list so that we can get the parts shipped as necessary. We are also working with ADVA on the early shipment and installation of the equipment racks for the campus sites where we will be building fiber. We need the racks in place in order to install the fiber patch panels that the construction contractors will build when the fiber laterals are completed.
2. Little Rock/Monroe IRU: We will wrap up the agreement with Paetec/McLeod on this route this week.
3. Little Rock/Time Warner Telecom: We heard late last week that this agreement is very close to completion.
4. Ritter/Jonesboro: The Ritter dark fiber capacity agreement is currently under review by the UA legal counsel.
5. Suddenlink: We feel that the Suddenlink proposals for the south route to HSU in Arkadelphia and the route from Magnolia to Guernsey are going to be our best prospects for completing those routes economically. I will be contacting Suddenlink to get a final proposal and draft agreement to us this week.
6. McLeod/OneNet/Tulsa: We are going to cancel any work for tying the Tulsa end of the McLeod fiber to OneNet.
7. Juniper Routers: Juniper delivered the fix to our non-stop routing problem in the latest release of their JUNOS operating system. Steven installed this version in the Fayetteville M960 on January 2, 2009.
8. Fiber Laterals Engineering: The approval of our selection of the construction manager is still pending. The UA Board of Trustees is meeting this Friday, January 16, and the approval is on their agenda. Also, the selection must receive approval by the Legislative Council before a contract can be signed. The next meeting of the Legislative Council is February 20. Delays in these approvals have made our construction timeline extremely tight. However, at this point, we are still pushing to have construction completed by June 15, 2009. This will give us time to get the optical network installed and tested, then build the Layer 2 & 3 backbone infrastructure and the links to the campuses to hopefully have our campuses operational by the time the Fall 2009 semester starts.
Here are brief status updates on each of the fiber lateral projects:
a. Alma/MBO: The signed easements are awaiting approval by the UA System Office and Board of Trustees for approval. A proposal is being placed before the BoT that will enable easements to be expedited through UA System Office approval and just follow-up reporting to the BoT afterwards. McClelland Engineering and GA Engineering has issued draft prints for the fiber hut to be constructed, and these are under review by the ARE-ON staff. The fiber construction prints are also under review by ARE-ON staff.
b. Fort Smith/UA Fort Smith: ARE-ON staff has reviewed the draft prints for the two routes to the campus, and CT&T is working on final drawings. We have a pending request to MBO and Cox for permission to use their splice points. We also have two pending requests for railroad permits. The UA legal counsel issued an opinion that the University is not subject to city franchises due to status as a state entity.
c. Russellville/Arkansas Tech University: CT&T has completed the draft prints for the two routes to the ATU campus. Both sets are currently under review by the ARE-ON staff. Of note is McLeod/Paetec reversing an earlier decision to now allow ARE-ON to build to the mid-span splice point along I-40 nearest the campus on the south route. This saves ARE-ON substantial cost in not having to extend that fiber several miles to the next available splice point east of Weir Road.
d. Conway/University of Central Arkansas: Conway Corp has agreed to build a portion of the northern route to the UCA campus. We will have to build a short amount of fiber to connect to the McLeod splice point near the intersection of I-40 and Skyline Drive and at the other end of the cable to connect to the campus. The agreement with Conway Corp is currently under review by our legal counsel. CT&T has been directed to engineer the southern route to connect the campus to the McLeod splice point along I-40 south of Dave Ward Drive.
e. North Little Rock/Level3 POP: We have decided to not build the two routes from the McLeod fiber along I-40 into the Level3 POP.
f. North Little Rock/McLeod POP: CT&T is working on the draft prints for this route, which replaces the two routes we had originally planned for joining the McLeod and Level3 long-haul fibers at the Level3 POP. It is a single short build along state highway right-of-way with a short segment that McLeod will provide into their splice point at the intersection of I-40 and I-440. We have decided that the McLeod POP will house our Juniper core router and an ADVA ROADM. We anticipate needing a single easement to cross private property to reach the McLeod POP, but the easement research is still pending.
g. Pine Bluff/UA Pine Bluff: CT&T is working on the draft prints for the northern route into the UAPB campus. An agreement with WEHCO Video for a separate southern route is still pending.
h. Monticello/UA Monticello: ARE-ON staff has reviewed the draft prints for both the northern and southern routes to the UAM campus and returned them to CT&T for revisions and finalization.
i. Arkadelphia/Henderson State University: CT&T will issue draft prints of the northern route next week for ARE-ON’s review. We have decided to get a formal proposal from Suddenlink for the southern route. Suddenlink’s fiber will be predominantly aerial, but will be substantially less expensive than if we were to building it ourselves. Level3 has given us preliminary estimates for the cost of building off their splice point near the intersection of I-30 and Country Club Road.
j. Magnolia/Southern Arkansas University: We have decided to get a formal proposal from Suddenlink to build fiber from the Level3 POP near Guernsey and the SAU campus in Magnolia. We do not think that we can put together an eastern route to Monticello in a short timeframe or that would cost us less than what Suddenlink has proposed. Our desire to find a lower-cost route to the east out of Magnolia using fiber from multiple providers does not look promising at this point.
k. Little Rock/UALR/UAMS: Our understanding is that the Time Warner Telecom agreement with the City of Little Rock is very near resolution. We have an alternative plan in place that will require construction of our own fiber to UALR and UAMS, but at significant cost. We are anxious to get this deal completed so that we can start the route design work needed to tie the two campuses into the rest of the backbone fiber.
l. 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: We have received clearance to put out a RFI for commodity Internet service, which we plan to do in the month of January. Germane to the discussion are not just bandwidth costs, but also the cost of local loops, backhaul, and possible colocation. The Quilt providers all offer very promising rates and free backhaul with certain restrictions. However, our understanding is that the market has grown increasingly competitive, thereby offering us other choices beyond just the Quilt providers. A RFI will help us get the information to know how to proceed with contracting for Commodity Internet services for 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.
-David Merrifield, Chief Technology Officer
Arkansas Research and Education Optical Network
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