1. ADVA DWDM equipment: During the week of January 26th, Scott Ramoly and Steven Karp accompanied
ADVA project personnel on site visits to almost all of the locations around the state and on the route to Dallas where ADVA equipment will be installed. Information gathered during these visits is being assimilated into a document that details the scope of work at each site that ADVA has been contracted for during the DWDM equipment installation that will take place during the summer. Due to inclement weather conditions, travel to some sites were not possible that week, so follow-on visits to those sites will be done in the near future. On Tuesday, February 10, we had a major project kickoff meeting with ADVA during which
we discussed the equipment configurations at each site based on the details of the site visits conducted so far. Based on the current network design, ADVA is confident that we will have sufficient equipment acquired during the RFP last fall to build the entire network plus light all the way to Dallas. Steven has provided ADVA with specifications for Eltek Valere FLATPACK2 systems for DC rectification necessary at campus locations where DC power is not available. In addition, we have provided ADVA with our preferred specifications on a number of other things that they will be supplying, including racks and cabinets.2. Little Rock/Monroe IRU: The paperwork for completing the Paetec/McLeod IRU agreement between Little Rock and Monroe is being processed, as are documents about colocation space, splicing into the Paetec backbone fiber, and the use of house fiber for entering the regen site in North Little Rock.
3. Little Rock/Time Warner Telecom: We have a conference call scheduled today with TWTC regarding the agreement with the City of Little Rock. This will be an important call for us; we hope to have a better understanding of acceptable use of the metro fiber in Little Rock.
4. Little Rock: We have made the recommendation based on a variety of factors to proceed with the engineering and build of our own fiber in Little Rock to connect the UAMS and UALR campuses. This route would include diverting our Level3 fiber that passes through Little Rock through the two campuses, thus placing both campuses directly on the ARE-ON backbone. Also, now that we have decided to light the Level3 fiber to Dallas, along with additional work we are planning for Dallas, we can provide diverse routes for both campuses.
5. Ritter/Jonesboro: The Ritter dark fiber capacity agreement is currently under review by the UA legal counsel.
6. Conway: The Conway Corporation dark fiber agreement is currently under review by the UA legal counsel.
7. Suddenlink: I have contacted Suddenlink regarding the preparation of a formal proposal to build two routes in their service areas for us, including the south route to the HSU campus in Arkadelphia and the route to the SAU campus in Magnolia. We have a conference call scheduled for this Wednesday, February 18, to discuss the proposal in detail.
8. McLeod/OneNet/Tulsa: We are going to cancel any work for tying the Tulsa end of the McLeod fiber to OneNet.
9. Juniper Routers: Steven Karp worked with the UARK network group to place their new Juniper MX960 border router into production. All campus traffic to/from ARE-ON now goes through that router. The legacy Juniper M10 router is still running, currently handling the Internet2 traffic for UALR and UAMS, as well as the connection to the state network for UARK. The state network connection will move at some point to the ARE-ON MX960 in Fayetteville. ARE-ON will eventually take over the management of the M10 to eliminate the need for the UARK networking group to support the UALR and UAMS Internet2 links. Ultimately, as UALR and UAMS get their fiber link to ARE-ON, the M10 will move to serve other functions as long as it remains a viable resource and supported by Juniper.
10. Fiber Laterals Engineering: The selections of McClelland Consulting Engineers/CT&T as the engineering company and CDI as the construction manager for the fiber laterals construction project was reviewed and passed by a committee of the Legislative Council in their meeting on February 4th. The committee’s recommendation will be presented to the Legislative Council at their next meeting on February 20th. The McClelland contract has been signed and the CDI contract is under review by UA legal counsel. In the meantime, we have had weekly meetings with all three companies since the first of the year and have developed a project plan. The target of the plan is to have construction completed for all projects currently not on hold by June 15. Bids for subcontractors for Phase A are going out this week, with a pre-bid conference scheduled for February 18. These will be on the street about three weeks at which point they will be opened and an award or awards will be made. Phase A includes construction of the following fiber laterals: Fort Smith (north and south routes), Alma (two south routes to Cox/MBO splice and one north route to McLeod splice), Russellville (north and south routes), and Monticello (north and south routes). Easement documents that must be reviewed and approved by the individual campuses where fiber will be built are being drawn up.
Here are brief status updates on each of the fiber lateral projects:
a. Alma/MBO: The ARE-ON staff completed their review of the site. McClelland is wrapping up the last changes to the prints for the building at Alma. The five easements were signed and returned by the UA System Office, and as of last Friday, a sixth easement had been signed and mailed by the property owner. We have received preliminary approval from MBO & Cox for use of their splice point, but we are still awaiting the pricing quote for the work that Cox will need to do for the actual splicing. We have also received preliminary approval from McLeod. McLeod will pull the necessary highway permits for us, but will work with our contractor for the actual lateral build and splicing. This site will be in Bid Package A, which is being submitted this week.
b. Fort Smith/UA Fort Smith: The ARE-ON staff completed their review of the site. The last corrections on the prints for the two routes to UAFS have been completed. We are still awaiting an easement document for a small piece of property at the Cox splice point near the Garrison Avenue bridge. We have received preliminary approval from MBO & Cox for use of their splice point, but we are still awaiting the pricing quote for the work that Cox will need to do for the actual splicing. The two railroad permits are still pending approval. This project will require relocation of equipment from the existing MBO POP in downtown Fort Smith to the UAFS campus. This site will be in Bid Package A, which is being submitted this week.
c. Russellville/Arkansas Tech University: The ARE-ON staff completed their review of the site. The last corrections for the two routes to ATU have been completed. We have preliminary approval from McLeod on the use of their splice points, including a mid-span splice point that we were originally unable to use. McLeod will pull the necessary highway permits for us, but will work with our contractor for the actual lateral build and splicing. This site will be in Bid Package A, which is being submitted this week.
d. Monticello/UA Monticello: The ARE-ON staff completed their review of the site. The last corrections on the prints for the two routes to UAM have been completed. The use of the two McLeod splice points are still pending the completion of the IRU agreement. This site will be in Bid Package A, which is being submitted this week.
e. Conway/University of Central Arkansas: CT&T is in the process of completing the engineering of the two routes to the UCA campus. The northern route consists of short pieces on the beginning and end of the Conway Corp fiber that we are acquiring. The southern route reaches to a McLeod splice point along I-40 in south Conway. CT&T predicts that preliminary route drawings will be ready by February 18. The agreement with Conway Corp is currently under review by our legal counsel. UCA has asked if they can join with ARE-ON on a portion of the fiber build for conduit that extends south of their campus, which we will try to accommodate if at all possible.
f. North Little Rock/Level3 POP: We have decided to not build the two routes from the McLeod fiber along I-40 into the Level3 POP. If the TWTC deal is consummated, we will build one route from the POP to meet the TWTC fiber somewhere in North Little Rock. Meetings with TWTC engineering staff would have to take place before we know where that meet-me point would be.
g. North Little Rock/McLeod POP: CT&T is working on the draft prints for this route, which should be ready this week. We have a pending agreement with McLeod/Paetec on the fiber entrance to the POP, which per their sales engineer will need to be via house fiber rather than our own fiber. The build that we will undertake is from the POP over to a nearby splice point on the Level3 fiber along I-40. Level3 has provided an estimate on the cost of their lateral build. The colocation agreement with McLeod is also pending review. We will be placing ADVA ROADM and Juniper router equipment at this site. It will be our major central Arkansas routing node.
h. Pine Bluff/UA Pine Bluff: CT&T is working on the draft prints for the northern route into the UAPB campus, which should be ready for ARE-ON review by February 23. An agreement with WEHCO Video for a separate southern route is still pending.
i. Arkadelphia/Henderson State University: CT&T is working on the draft prints for the northern route into the HSU campus, which should be available for ARE-ON review this week. The contact with Suddenlink about the southern route is still pending. Level3 has given us preliminary estimates for the cost of building off their splice point near the intersection of I-30 and Country Club Road.
j. Magnolia/Southern Arkansas University: The contract with Suddenlink about building a route from the Level3 POP near Guernsey to the SAU campus in Magnolia is still pending. Prior efforts to find an alternate route to the east through El Dorado and Monticello have not been successful, although we hope that as a future project we might be able to acquire and/or build this route in order to round off a fiber ring for the southern half of the state.
k. Little Rock/UALR/UAMS: The decision point for use of the TWTC fiber has already passed. ARE-ON staff feels that this fiber will be of limited use especially as TWTC wants to put restrictions on its use. We have released CT&T to begin developing the detailed engineering plans for the preliminary route prepared several months ago. There is a major financial implication to this that will need to be addressed.
l. Monroe/University of Louisiana – We are awaiting the MOU with LONI before we can proceed with this project. LONI has just recently lost its executive director and may not be in a position to move the MOU forward yet. Mike Abbiatti is working with them to finalize the MOU and to place it before the LONI Management Council. In the meantime, we have approached the staff at the University of Louisiana, Monroe, about the physical facility. A site visit has not been scheduled yet, but will take place in the near future.
11. Dallas: As a result of a revision of the optical network design, there were sufficient savings in equipment already purchased through the DWDM equipment RFP from last Fall that will enable us to light the route all the way to Dallas. Site visits have already been made to the Level3 regen and collocation facilities. We have also solicited budgetary quotes from AT&T, Qwest, and Level3 for a 10-gigabit circuit between Dallas and Tulsa that will provide redundancy for all of the sites located along the Little Rock to Dallas fiber route (includes UAMS, UALR, HSU, and SAUM). One of the Juniper MX480 routers previous acquired and in use as a test machine will be deployed in Dallas to facilitate the circuit.
12. Arkansas One-Call & ARKUPS: The application for ARKUPS (the non-profit organization that will contract with us to do utility locates) has not yet come in. When we receive it, we will file it along with the application for Arkansas One-Call.
13. Commodity Internet: We have talked informally with Qwest, Level3, and AT&T about commodity Internet services. Now that we are planning to light the route to Dallas, we have many more options for CIS than before. We plan to put out a RFI to gather information about which companies can provide services and where their points of access are.
14. NOC: We have obtained a toll-free number and are contracting for an answering service to take trouble calls 24x7 and forward to an on-call ARE-ON network engineer. This, coupled, with some automated network monitoring, an out-of-band management network, and training that we will be conducting with select ARE-ON member institutions, will be our first start at a network operations center. This is a low-cost approach, which we will evaluate later to see if it is meeting the needs of the ARE-ON members or if a professional out-sourced NOC contract is called for.
15. DIS Peering: We still plan to work with DIS on migrating their Fayetteville connection to the ARE-ON MX960 router.
16. Fiber Testing Tools: Steven Karp and Scott Ramoly have had an opportunity to do some hands-on testing of the EXFO fiber testing tools with excellent results. The EXFO FTB-400 is a modular chassis that provides plug-in modules for various functions such as OTDR, power meter, CD and PMD analysis, etc.
On a personal note, all of ARE-ON’s staff was impacted by the
ice storms that hit on January 26-27. Some of us were without power at home for over a week, and most of us have substantial tree and other damage at our homes. Steven Karp and Scott Ramoly were doing scheduled site visits around the state and into Texas during this time, and I want to take this opportunity to thank and commend them for their dedication to the project while their families were back home. We appreciate the patience of all as we work through the aftermath.-David Merrifield, Chief Technology Officer
Arkansas Research and Education Optical Network
