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