Low Cost, Long Haul Gigabit
Ethernet
Alan Cowie
AARNet Pty Ltd
January 2004
Outline
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Opportunity
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Geography/Building Blocks
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Proof of Concept
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Design
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Resource Requirements
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Outcome
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References/URLs
Opportunity
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The main campus of the University of New
England (UNE) is located in Armidale, Northern
NSW.
UNE required a replacement for their expensive,
ATM based tail link (8Mbps on E3) to the
AARNet hub in Sydney.
Transgrid offered UNE some surplus bandwidth
on existing Transgrid infrastructure.
AARNet wanted to explore low cost, long haul
opportunities.
Geography
330kV Tower
The Transgrid Network
Concept
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Transgrid has long run fibre.
AARNet is a Carrier and has network building
and operating experience.
AARNet and Transgrid formed a partnership to
provide bandwidth to UNE.
Excess capacity could be sold to other customers.
UNE wanted a cost effective IP/ethernet service
from Sydney to Armidale.
Building Blocks
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TG had installed fibre in the Overhead Earth wire
on some sections of their 330kV network.
The fibre is brought to the ground and terminated
only at substations and powerstations.
The Armidale to Sydney section had some long
fibre runs (>80km).
AARNet was already using Cisco CWDM
equipment with very good optical properties.
Building Blocks 2
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The CWDM GBICS
support 1.25-Gbps fullduplex links with an
Optical link budget of
better than 30 dB.
Cisco 3550-12T Gigabit
ethernet Switches. Each
supports 10 GBIC
interfaces and two
copper 10/100/1000
ports.
Available Fibre
A end
Armidale
Tamworth
Muswellbrook
Liddell
Newcastle
Eraring
Vales Point
Munmorah
Sydney North
B end
KM
Tamworth
106
Muswellbrook 130
Liddell
19
Newcastle
104
Eraring
22
Vales Point
32
Munmorah
8
Sydney North 80
Sydney West 38
Attn dB
24.18
29.3
4.96
22.69
5
7.6
2.29
17.8
9.04
Proof of Concept
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The Tamworth to Muswellbrook leg was the
longest at 130km with a 29.3dB optical loss.
The PoC was tested on this leg using 1470nm and
1490nm CWDM GBICs in borrowed Cisco
switches.
When tested, the 130km link came up straight
away and ran without error for the duration of the
test. Power meter readings showed ample signal.
The 1550nm GBIC were expected to perform
better than the 1470 & 1490nm test optics.
Design
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Each switch is a OEO
signal regenerator and a
breakout node.
Each switch can support 5
north/south GE paths.
No provision for OOB
management
Customer separation by
QinQ VLAN stacking
Radio last leg until
Broadway substation
completed
Multiplex Design
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Initial design supports
only 1 GigE path due
to MUX losses
Shorter runs can
support CWDM mux
Longer runs will need
amplification to
support CWDM mux
Resource Requirements
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>500kms of fibre
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6 x Cisco 3550-12T Gigabit ethernet switches
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12 x Cisco 1000BASE-CWDM GBIC 1550 nm
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A few UPSs
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Patch leads
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Fibre tails from the TG sites to the end users
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Clue
Outcomes
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Lit up >500km fibre
run with Gigabit
Ethernet.
Six potential customer
breakout/access nodes.
Total cost for all
active/optical gear less
than cost of one SDH
node.
Potential for up to 8
GE paths.
References/URLs
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http://www.aarnet.edu.au/
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http://www.une.edu.au/
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http://www.transgrid.com.au/about_us/inset.html
● http://www.cisco.com/warp/public/cc/so/neso/olso/nesocdwm/cgbic_ov.htm
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http://mangrove.nswrno.net.au/dist/public/tgune/unetgnet2_frame.htm
http://xl.nswrno.net.au/tgune/
Alan Cowie – AARNet Sydney
alan.cowie@aarnet.edu.au