November 2014 Fiber network
Question:
From:
"Reshadi, Anne - DOT" Anne.Reshadi@DOT.WI.GOV
Subject:
2014 Fiber network
Hello,
Looking for input on the ownership and management of fiber networks that are used to communicate to
dynamic message signs, cameras, ramp meters, traffic signals etc. Any information you could provide
would be greatly appreciated! For reference, the attached word document contains WisDOT's answers to
the questions. Thank you!
1. Does your State own an ITS and Traffic Signal fiber optic network that is used for communication to
ITS devices such as dynamic message signs (DMS), cameras, ramp meters, traffic signals, etc.?
a. If so, which State Agency owns the ITS and Traffic Signal fiber network? (DOT, IT State
Agency, other? Please provide contact info if another agency owns the fiber network.)
i. Does the same State agency monitor, operate, and maintain the fiber? 1. If no, who
does? (such as contracted resource)
ii. What is the estimated number of devices connected to the fiber network?
iii. What are the annual costs to monitor, operate, and maintain your ITS fiber network?
iv. Does your State lease, trade, and/or let others use your ITS fiber network?
v. Does your State allow barter arrangements in which it obtains the use of dark fiber or
bandwidth in exchange for the longitudinal occupation of controlled-access highway
ROW or other ROW, or charge a fee for longitudinal use if a barter arrangement cannot
be made?
b. If no, does your State lease or have IRUs to use dark fiber or lit services from private
telecommunication companies or others?
i. What are the annual costs for any fiber leases and/or IRUs you have?
ii. What are your annual operating costs?
iii. Would you prefer to own your fiber instead?
2. What is your ITS fiber network used for in addition to connections to ITS and Traffic Signal devices?
3. Do you find value in your ITS fiber network over, or in addition to, other forms of communication, such
as wireless?
4. Do you have any upcoming plans for expansion or reduction in your ITS fiber network (including
change in management structure)?
5. What role do you see your fiber network in providing communication to connected vehicles?
Anne L. Reshadi, P.E.
System Operations and Electrical Engineering Section Chief Wisconsin Department of Transportation Bureau of
Traffic Operations 433 W. St. Paul Avenue Milwaukee WI 53203-3007
Phone: (414) 227-2149
Fax: (414) 227-2165
Answer:
From:
"Donald Gedge" Donald.Gedge@TN.GOV
Subject:
Re: 2014 Fiber network
Hello Anne, our reply from Mr. Asem Halem in our Traffic Operations Division.
If you have any additional questions, please let me know.
Don
Answer:
From:
"Remkes, Charles A., NMDOT" Charles.Remkes@STATE.NM.US
Subject:
Re: 2014 Fiber network
From an operational perspective, nothing in my opinion beats the performance of fiber. We have a
backbone of 96 and 144 strand to our equipment in the Albuquerque area. It allows instantaneous and
reliable communications and has tremendous capacity. That said, one of the biggest issues we in New
Mexico have is being responsible for clearing what we call is one-call tickets. Sometimes called blue
staking - it's associated with subsurface activities where the contractor must give advance notice to
infrastructure owners (electrical, gas, telcos, cable, ....) so as to avoid hitting or cutting into the various
utility lines. Like those other providers, the NMDOT is also an owner of infrastructure (the fiber) so we too
are on that distribution. By law, we have to clear those tickets (indicate there is no interference) or mark
our infrastructure (for instances where there might be an interference) within 48-hours - or in the case of
emergency tickets - within 2 hours. This entails keeping our field staff on-call 24/7 - 365.
Another issue is copper theft. Though not directly related to fiber itself, when dumb thieves don't
recognize what they're pulling out of the ground isn't copper, they can unknowingly create some pretty
expensive damage. This has happened on more than one occasion.
With Best Regards,
Charles Remkes, P.E.
Office: (505) 222-6554
Cell: (505) 490-3308
Fax: (505) 222-6575
Answer:
From:
"John O'Neill" joneill@MDTA.STATE.MD.US
Subject:
Re: 2014 Fiber network
Responses below. Hope this is helpful.
1. Does your State own an ITS and Traffic Signal fiber optic network that is used for communication to
ITS devices such as dynamic message signs (DMS), cameras, ramp meters, traffic signals, etc.? Our
fiber network is a mixture of agency owned fiber, resource shared fiber, and some other fiber sharing
agreements.
a. If so, which State Agency owns the ITS and Traffic Signal fiber network? (DOT, IT State Agency,
other? Please provide contact info if another agency owns the fiber network.) The majority of the
centerline miles of fiber come from a resource sharing agreement with level 3 communications. The next
largest component of our fiber network is agency owned fiber. There are small segments that are subject
to some other kind of agreement, like interagency MOU's, leases, telco's.
i. Does the same State agency monitor, operate, and maintain the fiber? 1. If no, who does? (such as
contracted resource) No. Technically no one monitors the fiber. Whomever owns the equipment
connected to the fiber is responsible to monitor the link conditions reported by that equipment. The fiber is
therefore monitored as part of the overall network monitoring or equipment monitoring. Equipment
ownership tends to be either an ITS division or IT division issue. Our IT and ITS people work closely
together.
ii. What is the estimated number of devices connected to the fiber network? For just our agency, roughly
40 buildings and 200 field sites (CCTV, DMS, RWIS, ATRs, HARs, etc.).
iii. What are the annual costs to monitor, operate, and maintain your ITS fiber network? I'm not sure. The
monitoring is part of overall network monitoring and it's not separated out from other sources of network
issues such as power or equipment problems. Overwhelmingly, issues tend to be equipment or site
related and not fiber related. Most fiber problems are attributable to human error or contractors digging
without proper miss-utility clearance. Bad patch cables is somewhat common. Work that is attributable to
fiber includes:
* We do have people that respond to miss-utility locate tickets. But they locate the fiber, electrical,
drainage, gas, water, and all other utilities we own. We have never tried to separate those costs and
assign them by utility type. * We have network monitoring, which is automated. And 24/hr reponse. But
that is also overwhelmingly responding to equipment failures, power failures, and other problems. We
may experience 2 or 3 fiber incidents a year where some contractor cuts a cable and a response is
generated.
iv. Does your State lease, trade, and/or let others use your ITS fiber network? The ITS network and
enterprise network are the same. So we share the network. We also share/lease dark fibers with other
agencies.
v. Does your State allow barter arrangements in which it obtains the use of dark fiber or bandwidth in
exchange for the longitudinal occupation of controlled-access highway ROW or other ROW, or charge a
fee for longitudinal use if a barter arrangement cannot be made? Yes. We call that resource sharing and it
is used extensively. b. If no, does your State lease or have IRUs to use dark fiber or lit services from
private telecommunication companies or others?
vi. What are the annual costs for any fiber leases and/or IRUs you have? I don't know the annual costs.
We try to limit use of paid services like this as they are very expensive. I know of one leased fiber service
by MDOT for just about 3 miles of fiber costing $17K/ month. The state is in the process of running our
own fiber to replace the leased line.
vii. What are your annual operating costs? If I assume this is related to the operating costs for leased fiber
services for ITS, our cost is zero. We are not leasing or paying for any fiber for ITS services. We do have
some cellular data modems at sites that don't have fiber. We also have some fiber leases associated with
enterprise data connections. viii. Would you prefer to own your fiber instead? Yes. Much more flexibility
with owned fiber. Resource shared fiber is good to but access to the private companies manholes for
splicing is slow and costly compared to owning our own.
2. What is your ITS fiber network used for in addition to connections to ITS and Traffic Signal devices?
The network is a shared network for all enterprise applications. IT, ITS, Toll Collection, and in general all
MDOT Enterprise network needs share the same network.
3. Do you find value in your ITS fiber network over, or in addition to, other forms of communication, such
as wireless? Wireless networking is used sparingly. It tends to have reliability issues compared to fiber
networks. Fiber connections are much preferred over other forms of communications. Wireless and
cellular are used in mobile applications and other applications that do not need the same level of service
we get from fiber.
4. Do you have any upcoming plans for expansion or reduction in your ITS fiber network (including
change in management structure)? Most of the network is completed. There is no change in management
structure planned.
5. What role do you see your fiber network in providing communication to connected vehicles? Any
roadside elements of a connected vehicle initiative would probably use the fiber network. However, I
believe connected vehicles will use cellular wireless services from the private sector and therefore
state/MDOT networks won't be responsible to build communications systems or carry that data traffic.
Answer:
From:
"Fuller, Gregory A" gfuller@NCDOT.GOV
Subject:
Re: 2014 Fiber network- North Carolina DOT Response
Listed below is the North Carolina DOT's response regarding our statewide fiber network. If you have any
questions, please contact Greg Fuller, State ITS and Signals Engineer at gfuller@ncdot.gov.
1. Does your State own an ITS and Traffic Signal fiber optic network that is used for communication to
ITS devices such as dynamic message signs (DMS), cameras, ramp meters, traffic signals, etc.? Yes, we
have a fiber optic cable network of over 2300 miles connecting dynamic message signs, closed circuit
television cameras, traffic signals and detectors along our nearly 80,000 miles of state maintained
highways. Our network consists of single mode fiber in counts ranging from 6 fibers to 144 fibers.
a. If so, which State Agency owns the ITS and Traffic Signal fiber network? (DOT, IT State Agency,
other? Please provide contact info if another agency owns the fiber network.) NCDOT solely owns the
fiber optic cable network installed along interstates and freeways connecting ITS devices. In
municipalities that have a computerized traffic signal system, the fiber network is jointly owned by NCDOT
and the municipality.
i. Does the same State agency monitor, operate, and maintain the fiber? The fiber optic cable network is
operated and maintained by a combination of our 14 Highway Division personnel, contract resources and
local municipalities that operate/maintain traffic signal systems for NCDOT. 1. If no, who does? (such as
contracted resource) See above response.
ii. What is the estimated number of devices connected to the fiber network? Approximately 6500 traffic
signals, 652 closed circuit television cameras and 119 dynamic message signs.
iii. What are the annual costs to monitor, operate, and maintain your ITS fiber network? It would be very
difficult to break-out the maintenance costs for just fiber optic networks. We estimate an annual cost of
$500K - $750K. This includes conduit, junction boxes, fiber optic cable and splicing.
iv. Does your State lease, trade, and/or let others use your ITS fiber network? Not at this time.
v. Does your State allow barter arrangements in which it obtains the use of dark fiber or bandwidth in
exchange for the longitudinal occupation of controlled-access highway ROW or other ROW, or charge a
fee for longitudinal use if a barter arrangement cannot be made? Not at this time. In 2010, a non-profit
agency received legislative approval to build a broadband infrastructure for research, education and other
community institutions in our predominantly rural counties. NCDOT did receive dark fibers where the fiber
optic cable was installed in the ROW along controlled access highways. Also, we do not charge a fee for
the longitudinal use of a controlled access highway ROW. A private telecommunications company must
submit an Encroachment Agreement to NCDOT for approval prior to any cable being installed in the
ROW.
b. If no, does your State lease or have IRUs to use dark fiber or lit services from private
telecommunication companies or others? No at this time vi. What are the annual costs for any fiber
leases and/or IRUs you have? vii. What are your annual operating costs? viii. Would you prefer to own
your fiber instead?
2. What is your ITS fiber network used for in addition to connections to ITS and Traffic Signal devices?
Used to connect our Regional Traffic Management Centers.
3. Do you find value in your ITS fiber network over, or in addition to, other forms of communication, such
as wireless? Yes, we have found our fiber optic cable network to be more reliable and secure than
wireless communications.
4. Do you have any upcoming plans for expansion or reduction in your ITS fiber network (including
change in management structure)? Yes, new and/or expansion of fiber optic cable networks are included
in roadway construction and traffic signal system projects where appropriate.
5. What role do you see your fiber network in providing communication to connected vehicles? NCDOT
believes our extensive fiber optic cable network could be very beneficial in providing communications to
connected vehicles.
Greg Fuller, PE
State ITS and Signals Engineer NCDOT - ITS & Signals Unit
Phone: 919-661-5800
gfuller@ncdot.gov
Answer:
From:
" Eric Hill EHill@METROPLANORLANDO.COM
Subject:
Re: 2014 Fiber network
Anne,
FYI. Please see the attached file (Florida DOT _ITS and Traffic Signal Fiber Network Questions).
Eric