Laying the Foundation for the Future of Optical Networking
Internet2 established FiberCo as a means for acquiring, holding, and assigning dark fiber optic network assets in support of the Internet2 community's goals of developing and deploying advanced network applications and technologies. After making its first assignment of dark fiber optic cable for regional optical networking initiatives in December 2003, by the end of 2004 FiberCo had assigned more than 6200 miles of fiber optic cable in support of state, regional and national-level advanced networking efforts.
Through agreements with Internet2 corporate member Level 3 Communications, FiberCo has been able to provision dark fiber on Level 3's nationwide fiber footprint. FiberCo works with regional networks to acquire dark fiber assets, subsequently transferring ownership and operational responsibility for the fiber to the regional network. Dark fiber is a fundamental part of the network infrastructure being increasingly deployed and relied upon by the research and education community to meet next generation networking needs.
Assignments facilitated by FiberCo during 2004 included fiber for:
- The University of Wyoming between Laramie, Wyoming and Denver, Colorado to support cutting-edge science, such as the Lariat project; the first phase of a larger effort called IDeANet, which was recently funded by the National Center for Research Resources at the National Institutes of Health; and to establish a cost-effective, higher bandwidth connection to the Front Range GigaPop in Denver.
- Florida LambdaRail to create an advanced optical network to connect campuses and institutions across the state.
- Michigan State University, the University of Michigan, and Wayne State University between Chicago, Illinois and Detroit, Michigan.
- The Pacific Northwest National Laboratory between Seattle, Washington, and Boise, Idaho, with an additional lateral connection to Richland, Washington to establish connections to the new U.S. Department of Energy's UltraScience Network, the Pacific Northwest Gigapop in Seattle, the Abilene Network, and other national and international high-performance networks.
- National LambdaRail to facilitate the build out of their entire Phase I deployment from Sunnyvale, California to Seattle, Washington; Denver, Colorado; Chicago, Illinois; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; Washington, D.C.; Atlanta, Georgia; and Jacksonville, Florida.
- MCNC Grid Computing & Networking Services between Raleigh and Charlotte, North Carolina in support of North Carolina universities' access to the National LambdaRail optical infrastructure and the Abilene Network.