The SURA Crossroads
Interconnection to Enable Transformation
Interconnection to Enable Transformation
SURA
Southeastern Universities
Research Association
The SURA Crossroads provides the Southern U.S. with an
opportunity not just to keep up with but to lead the development
and deployment of new networking technologies to help shape
the emerging national networks of the future.
As the number of network-based applications and regional network services
that are supported by SURA and its members grow, the need to find more
economic methods to interconnect member institutions and their collaborators
will also grow. This need is magnified by the desire to provide advanced
network services to the broader education community within the SURA region
and to extend the capability for collaboration to other communities as well.
While providing advanced network services to SURA members in large
metropolitan areas may be economically possible, extending this connectivity
to secondary and tertiary metro areas and rural areas will continue to be
difficult. SURA and its members are working with others who are invested in
the South to identify state assets that could be integrated into a larger regional
infrastructure, develop creative uses of state and local tax credits and
economic development zones as incentives for developing telecommunications
facilities in high need and rural areas, and lobby for new federal dollars in
support of advanced networking infrastructure and services for our collective
constituents.
Through the SURA Crossroads we anticipate being able to forge creative
partnership between corporate, government and academic organizations in the
SURA region. Through these partnerships we intend to dramatically reduce the
cost of and increase the access to advanced network connectivity throughout
the SURA region.
SURA is committed to help ensure that our region is competitive both nationally
and
internationally
a rapidly
emerging
technology-based
economy.
“We must
begin to envisionin
a South
whose strength
is science
– a South where science
education is uniformly
strong, entrepreneurship flourishes and where technology reduces the divide between people, and businesses and
government work together.”
Paul Patton, Governor of Kentucky & Chairman of the Southern Governors’ Association, April 25, 2001.
Interconnection to Enable Transformation
Work locally, think regionally, impact nationally
Recognizing that SURA members'
collaborations are not locally or even
regionally bound, SURA consistently
integrates national and international
perspectives into its programs to
deliver outcomes of regional value with
global significance.
The SURA Crossroads will move forward with the benefit of close association
with organizations and individuals who direct and influence the political and
economic climate of the South and who realize that the value of the proposed
regional infrastructure extends far beyond immediate advancement of SURA's
scientific and engineering mission.
Strategic Initiatives
[defined/articulated program]
Stakeholder Commitment
High Impact
Programs
[local/regional/national impact]
[committed, connected leaders]
Together, we can make cost-effective advanced network services available as a
tool for research, education and economic development across the entire South,
including our rural and under-served communities.
“Individual commitment to a group effort--that is
what makes a team work.”
-Vince Lombardi
Capturing the Present
Defining & Meeting the Challenges
"They always say time changes
things, but you actually have to
change them yourself.”
-Andy Warhol
The challenges of providing this vital network layer are well understood:
• The demand for robust networking exceeds the availability of the
infrastructure, particularly in rural areas
• Even if services are available, they are cost prohibitive for many
• The increasing necessity of "becoming connected" frequently means that
those who cannot afford to pay high connection costs pay the much higher
price of remaining unconnected
Copyright Brian H. Trammell
The SURA Crossroads intends to meet these challenges through combined
innovative leadership and the leveraging of collective assets to:
• Access, control and potentially own optical fiber that forms the basis of today's most
advanced networks
• Challenge, and even disrupt, the existing pricing structure for this fiber and its
related components
• Leverage SURA and SURA members' assets and partnerships to develop "buying
club" power
• Work with state and regional government initiatives to build extensible electronic
superhighways
Capturing the Present
The Timing Is Right for Major
Change In Network Economics
"Some of the world's greatest feats were
accomplished by people not smart enough to
know they were impossible.”
-Doug Larson
Factors Contributing to a New View
of Telecommunications Service and Pricing:
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
The demand for access is outstripping the ability to pay
Convergence of aggressive fiber deployment, DWDM, IP in the WAN
changes existing economic models
Shrinking capital markets forcing sound revenue models and clearly defined
markets.
State and local government awareness of the role networks play in
education and economic development.
State and local government awareness of the value represented by their
control of the physical ROW.
Resurgence of the SURA community’s desire to get involved in a regionwide IT initiative.
Fiber optic cable deployments in second and third tier metropolitan areas
combined with the convergence of high speed transport technologies
brings end user ownership and control of regional fiber networks within the
realm of possibility.
“Since the invention of the microprocessor, the cost of moving a byte of information around
has fallen on the order of 10-million-fold. Never before in the human history has any
product or service gotten 10 million times cheaper--much less in the course of a couple
decades. That's as if a 747 plane, once at $150 million a piece, could now be bought for
about the price of a large pizza.”
-Michael Rothschild, author of Bionomics, Economy as Ecosystem
Capturing the Present
The overarching vision of the SURA Crossroads is to organize and leverage the
collective monetary, physical, and intellectual assets of SURA and its member
institutions to develop a new model for extending network connections
throughout the Southern United States.
“The future belongs to those who
believe in the beauty of the dream.”
-Eleanor Roosevelt
The following principals guide the development of the SURA Crossroads:
• To seek improvements in networking options for non-metropolitan and rural areas in
addition to the more "solvable" problem of connecting metropolitan areas
• To avoid limitations imposed by restrictive use policies that favor one community over
another or neglect the benefits of economic development
• To focus on lowering the cost of all networked services, both production and research
• To create a telecommunications infrastructure that can be priced at or near actual cost
and significantly disrupting the existing market-based pricing models.
The Spirit & Necessity of Collaboration
The SURA Crossroads is proceeding with the support of the SURA
membership and the critical guidance of highly qualified staff from
SURA member institutions as well as invited partners.
SURA Crossroads Working Group
Carl Baker
Florida State University
Jed Diem
Tulane University
Don Halverstadt
University of Alabama at Huntsville
Peter Murray
Catholic American University
Brice Bible
University of Tennessee
Joel Dunn
University of NC/Chapel Hill
John Hurley
Clark Atlanta University
Jerry Sobieski
Mid-Atlantic Crossroads
Alan Blatecky
Duke University
Larry Flournoy
Texas A&M University
Ron Hutchins
Georgia Institute of Technology
Troy Travis
University of South Carolina
Jeff Crowder
Virginia Polytechnic Institute
Doyle Friskney
University of Kentucky
Mark Johnson
North Carolina R&E Network
Gordon Wishon
Georgia Institute of Technology
Gary Crane
SURA
Joe Grissom
University of Oklahoma
Tom Lindsay
Mississippi State University
Mary Fran Yafchak
SURA
George Davis
University of Tennessee
Jack Hall
Florida Atlantic University
Zia Mafaher
Catholic American University
SURA Crossroads Architecture Team
Steve Corbato
Internet2
Zane Gray
University of Oklahoma
Dewitt Lattimer
University of Tennessee
Stewart Seruya
University of Miami
Gary Crane
SURA
Chris Griffin
University of Florida
Paul Love
Internet2
Jerry Sobieski
Mid-Atlantic Crossroads
James Deaton
OneNet
Daniel Grim
University of Delaware
John Nichols
Virginia Tech
Troy Travis
University of South Carolina
Tim Deeves
Tulane University
Philippe Hanset
University of Tennessee
Ken Orgill
West Virginia University
Ryan Vaughn
University of Florida
Jed Diem
Tulane University
Rene Hatem
CANARIE
David Pokorney
University of Florida
John Watters
University of Alabama
Thomas Durkin
Geo-Matrix
Ron Hutchins
Georgia Institute of Technology
Ana Preston
University of Tennessee
Roy Whitney
Jefferson Lab
Larry Flournoy
Texas A&M University
Bill Johnson
OneNet
Mike Rackely
Mississippi State University
Bill Wing
Oak Ridge National Lab
Doyle Friskney
University of Kentucky
Mark Johnson
North Carolina R&E Network
Sandra Redman
NASA
Mary Fran Yafchak
SURA
Jeff Fritz
University of West Virginia
Michael Krugman
Boston University
Dave Reese
4CNet
Robert Zimmerman
University of Arkansas
To provide industry insight and improved communications with potential industry
partners, SURA has retained the services of Geo-Matrix, a fiber industry-consulting
firm, for the first several phases of the Initiative.
The SURA Crossroads will work collaboratively with state and local
governments and corporate partners to gain access to dark fiber
facilities. These facilities will be engineered for immediate use by
SURA members, with use envisioned to extend quickly to the larger
research and education community within the SURA region.
"Leadership should be born out of the understanding of the needs of
those who would be affected by it.”
-Marian
Anderson
The Spirit & Necessity of Collaboration
Leveraging Existing Network Assets
The SURA Crossroads will proceed in collaboration with several
successful semi-regional network deployments that are already
providing vital network services to many in the SURA region:
Gulf Central GigaPoP - http://www.gcgpop.net
Louisiana State Network (LA Net) - http://www.state.la.us/otm/lanet
MAX (Mid-Atlantic Crossroads) - http://maxgigapopp.net
Mississippi GigaPoP - Located in Jackson, MS; coordinated by
Mississippi State University
Network Virginia - http://www.networkvirginia.net
North Carolina Networking Initiative - http://www.ncni.net
North Florida Aggregation Point - http://mrtg.acns.fsu.edu/mrtg/internet2
OneNet (Oklahoma) - http://www.onenet.net
SoX (Southern Crossroads) - http://www.sox.net
Texas GigaPoP - http://www.gigapop.gen.tx.us/index2.html
The SURA region contains the largest collection of advanced
academic networking aggregations working together on a regional
basis. The infrastructure that has been built thus far and the
leadership and lessons learned across this community of service
providers is an invaluable asset moving forward.