“A proposed strategy to make Canada the
most networked country in the world and the
first to have low cost Gigabit Internet
infrastructure available to virtually all
schools, hospitals, libraries and businesses
by 2005”
CA*net 3 National Optical Internet
Consortium Partners:
Bell Nexxia
Nortel
Cisco
JDS Uniphase
Newbridge
CA*net 3 Primary Route
CA*net 3 Diverse Route
GigaPOP
ORAN
Condo Fiber Network
linking all
universities and
Netera
hospital
BCnet
Calgary
Deploying a 4
channel CWDM
Gigabit Ethernet
network – 400 km
SRnet
MRnet
Regina
Condo Dark Fiber
Networks
connecting
universities and
schools
Winnipeg
ONet
Vancouver
Seattle
16 channel DWDM
-8 wavelengths @OC-192
reserved for CANARIE
-8 wavelengths for carrier
and other customers
Chicago
Multiple Customer
Owned Dark Fiber
Networks
connecting
universities and
schools
Deploying a 4
channel Gigabit
Ethernet transparent
optical DWDM–
1500 km
ACORN
St. John’s
Charlottetown
Fredericton
RISQ
Montreal
Halifax
Ottawa
STAR TAP
Toronto
New York
Customer Empowered Networks
 School boards and municipalities throughout North America are deploying
their own dark fiber networks in partnership with next generation carrier
 Individual institutions – the customers – own and control their own strands
of fiber



 Fiber are configured in point to point private networks; or
 Connect to local ISP or carrier hotel
Low cost LAN architectures and optics are used to light the fiber
Control and management of the optics and wavelengths is under the domain of the
LAN customer at the edge, as opposed to the traditional carrier in the center
These new concepts in customer empowered networking are starting in the same
place as the Internet started – the university and research community.
 Customers will start with dark fiber but will eventually extend further
outwards with customer control and ownership of wavelengths
 Extending the Internet model of autonomous peering networks to the telecom
world
What is happening elsewhere?
 California DCP project plans to connect up all schools to research and
education backbone – CALren-2
 Cost $US 32 million per year next 3 years
 Holland plans to connect up 12,000 schools with dark fiber
 Schools will be connected to national research and education backbone –
SURFnet 5
 Alberta has a major RFP to connect up 3800 public institutions in the province
 Sweden plans $US 2-3 billion for connecting municipalities and rural areas
 Iceland is building fiber network to all their schools which private sector will
take to the home
 Finland and Norway have similar plans
Market Drivers
 First - low cost
 Up to 1000% reduction over current telecom prices. 6-12 month payback
 Second - LAN invades the WAN – no complex SONET or ATM required in
network
 Network Restoral & Protection can be done by customer using a variety of
techniques such as wireless backup, or relocating servers to a multi-homed site,
etc
 Third - Enables new applications and services not possible with traditional
telecom service providers
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
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
Relocation of servers and extending LAN to central site
Out sourcing LAN and web servers to a 3rd party because no performance impact
IP telephony in the wide area (Spokane)
HDTV video
 Fourth – Allows access to new competitive low cost telecom and IT
companies at carrier neutral meet me points
 Much easier to out source servers, e-commerce etc to a 3rd party at a carrier
neutral collocation facility
Schoolboard Condominium Builds
Capitale
Région-de-Sherbrooke
Rivière-du-Nord
Seigneurie-des-Mille-Iles
Amiante
Laval
Saint-Hyacinthe
Affluents
Bois-Francs
Draveurs
Grandes-Seigneuries
Hautes-Rivières
Laurentides
Patriotes
Premières-Seigneurie
Samares
Trois-Lacs
Chemin-du-Roy
Marie-Victorin
Sir-Wilfrid-Laurier
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
Engineering
Study
School Board
Construction
List of Schoolboard Fiber Builds
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
PROJECT
140 km of fibre optics 80 schools
180 km of fibre optics 66 schools
175 km of fibre optics 52 schools
200 km of fibre optics 80 schools 4 partners
12 km of fibre optics 9 schools
170 km of fibre optics 111 schools 3 partners
250 km of fibre optics 51 schools
170 km of fibre optics 70 schools 4 partners
60 km of fibre optics 12 schools 4 partners
90 km of fibre optics 40 schools
210 km of fibre optics 58 schools
250 km of fibre optics 54 schools
200 km of fibre optics 35 schools
2 km of fibre optics 3 schools
190 km of fibre optics 73 schools
460 km of fibre optics 72 schools
45 km of fibre optics 15 schools
29 km of fibre optics 11 sites
6 km of fibre optics 5 schools
92 km of fibre optics 20 schools
Examples of Dark Fiber costs



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
University network Urban Fiber Builds
 Varennes: 50 km - $406K (maintenance $26K/year)
 Montreal East: 14 km - $120K (maintenance $9K/year)
 Laval: 33km - $213K (maintenance $15K/year)
University network Rural Fiber Builds
 Sorel: 54km - $266K (maintenance $19K/year)
 Megantic: 40km -$273K (maintenance $14K/year)
Schoolboards
 Victoriaville school board -Average price for fiber(s) $2 - $7 per meter
 Spokane School District - $US 800/mo for first 5 years then $US 400/mo
 Over 50 schools
 Stockholm - $1200/mo – over 100 schools
Las Vegas School district – 240 schools – Telcordia (Bellcore) prime contractor
Many, many others in the works
Companies like Telcordia (Bellcore), IBM, etc are now leading development of
dark fiber networks for schools
Condo Fiber Build Examples
 Des affluents: Total cost $1,500,00 ($750,00 for schools)

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
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70 schools
12 municipal buildings
204 km fiber
$1,500,000 total cost
average cost per building - $18,000 per building
 Mille-Isles: Total cost $2,100,000 ($1,500,000 for schools)



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80 schools
18 municipal buildings
223km
$21,428 per building
 Laval: Total cost $1,800,000 ($1,000,000 for schools)

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111 schools
45 municipal buildings
165 km
$11,500 per building
Peel county: Total cost $5m – 100 buildings
 Cost per building $50,000
Peel County Municipal Fiber Network
 Mississauga, Brampton, Pell
 200 km of Fibre
 96 strand backbone
 “Enough for small country”
 12-60 strands elsewhere
 12,000 strand-kilometers
 Laid end-to-end = Victoria to St.
John’s …...and back again
Typical Payback for school
(Real example – des affluents – north of Montreal)
 Over 3 years total expenditure of $1,440,000 for DSL service
 Total cost of dark fiber network for 100 schools $1,350,000
 Additional condominium participants were brought in to
lower cost to school board to $750,000
 School board can now centralize routers and network servers
at each school
 Estimated savings in travel and software upgrades
$800,000
 Payback typically 8 –16 months
 Independent Study by Group Secor available upon request
Reduction in the number of
servers
Before
fiber
Antennas
Novell Servers
SQL Servers
Lotus Notes Servers
Tape Backup Servers
Ethernet switches/hubs
Routers
Cache/proxy (Linux)
Fire walls (Linux)
78
82
13
2
12
10
108
12
1
After
fiber
0
1
3
1
4
98
3
0
1
A possible framework for the last mile
 The R&E community leadership in customer empowered networks is
pointing to a possible solution for the last mile to the home
 An architecture concept also based on open access customer owned dark
fiber using well known LAN architectures
 Many competitive service providers share in the cost of condominium
fiber
 Ensures facilities based competition
 Telcos are unlikely to build FTTH in existing neighborhoods because of
the huge capital investment and ROI needed on that investment
 Solutions for high speed Internet to the home may not come from the
carriers but from the R&E community
The basic assumptions
 The good, the bad and the ugly..
 Monopolies are bad
 Duopolies are ugly
 Facilities based competition is good
 The private sector, in an open competitive market, is far more effective at
responding to consumer’s needs and introducing new services at lower
prices than any kind of government regulation
 But government has a responsibility to foster competition and ensure a
level playing field
 Where a natural monopoly exists government has a responsibility to
regulate that monopoly, but only as a last resort
 First it should make every attempt to develop mechanisms for
introducing private sector competition rather than depending on
legislative fiat
 Regulation should be seen as a last resort
Networked Nation
CA*net 4
Usually one GigaPOP per province
Provincial research and education network
Usually one access facility in every major town and city
Commercial
Internet
Commercial
Internet
SuperNodes
School board office
Colo
City Hall
Colo
Colo
University
Splice Box
Nodes
School
School
Library
Hospital
Splice Box
School
Colo
Homes
Option A: Home owners and
businesses have fused
connections all the way to
service provider at supernode
Option B: Home owners
are aggregated at node
by service provider of
their choice
Possible architecture for large town
Central Office
For Wireless
Company
Carrier Owned
Fiber
School board office
Cable head end
Telco Central
Office
Condominium Fiber
with separate strands
owned by school and by
service providers
School
VDSL, HFC or Fiber
Provisioned by
service provider
Colo
Facility
School
Average Fiber
Penetration to 250-500
homes
Possible architecture for small town
Receiver for
Satellite
Streaming
Receiver for
Skycache
Town Hall
Cache boxes and servers
Operated by satellite company
Condominium Fiber
with separate strands
owned by school/town
hall and by service
providers
School
Colo
Facility
School
Average Fiber
Penetration to 250-500
homes
Benefits to Industry
 For cablecos and telcos it help them accelerate the deployment of high speed
internet services into the community
 Currently deployment of DSL and cable modem deployment is
hampered by high cost of deploying fiber into the neighbourhoods
 Cable companies need fiber to every 250 homes for cable modem
service, but currently only have fiber on average to every 5000 homes
 Telephone companies need to get fiber to every 250 homes to support
VDSL or FSAN technologies
 Wireless companies need to get fiber to every 250 homes for new high
bandwidth wireless services and mobile Internet
 It will provide opportunities for small innovative service providers to offer
service to public institutions as well as homes
 For e-commerce and web hosting companies it will generate new business in
out sourcing and web hosting
 For Canadian optical manufacturing companies it will provide new
opportunities for sales of optical technology and components
Carriers are not the only
decision maker in the last mile
 Governments and consumers are becoming more active voice in determining
the future of broadband to home
 Do not assume that carrier best technical solution is the only approach
 Open access is becoming a critical political issue
 Consumers want more than duopoly of cable and telco
 Facilities based competition the best
 Municipalities object to their streets being torn up
 Dig once – bury lots of fiber
 Residents object to street furniture and antennae
An important Role for Government
 Governments promote the framework for GITH networks by funding schools,
universities, libraries, hospitals and municipal buildings as first customers and
early adopters of dark fiber and optical networks
 Private sector leverages that investment by government to promote high speed
Internet access to schools and universities to extend the fiber to the home
 Electric utility companies, municipal governments, CLECs, SMEs,
entrepreneurs, as well as traditional telcos and cablecos can participate as
providers, provided they subscribe to the architecture of open access, facilities
based competition through dark fiber (or wavelengths)
 Emphasize the development and use of technology that specifically addresses the
new architecture and the last mile, which must therefore be open, cheap and
Internet-only
CANARIE's 6th Advanced Networks Workshop
"The Networked Nation"
November 28 and 29, 2000
Palais des Congrès
Montreal, Quebec - Canada
 "The Networked Nation", will focus on application architectures ("grids") made
up of customer owned dark fiber and next generation Internet networks like
CA*net 3 that will ultimately lead to the development of the networked nation
where eventually every school, home and business will have high bandwidth
connection to the Internet.
 Three tracks:
 Customer owned dark fiber for schools, hospitals, businesses and homes.
 Next generation optical Internet architectures that will be a natural and seamless
extension of the customer owned dark fiber networks being built for schools,
homes and businesses.
 "application grids", which are a seamless integration of dark fiber and optical
networks to support specific collaborative research and education applications.