Baltic Open.Net

1
Baltic Open.Net

• Establishing network over submarine cable
  Stockholm Ventspils
• Connecting the Sweden Royal Technical University
  (KTH) in Stockholm and Ventspils University
  College (VeA) in Latvia
• Gints Neimanis
• VeA, Latvia

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About Ventspils and VeA

• Ventspils is located in the north-west of Latvia
  with 44 000 inhabitants.
• Main industries in Ventspils, with main
  industries in tourism and transit (one of the
  major ports in Baltic states)
• The VeA was established in 1997.
• In 2004./2005. - 750 undergraduate and master
  students in following directions
• business and management studies
• translating and interpreting
• information technology (from 2002.)

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Submarine cable

• in 2002. Stokab AB (Sweden) has built submarine
  fibre cable from Uto (near Stockholm) to Foresund
  in Gotland.
• The Hulvent ABand Foco 16 decided to
  extended this fibre cable from Gotland to
  Ventspils.

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KTH
Uto
Farosund
VeA
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Submarine cable

• At the end of 2003. Hulvent AB\Foco 16 and
  Ventspils municipality made agreement, where the
  cable owners agreed to give the free access to
  one fibre pair in cable to KTH and VeA for
  academic task (not commercial use)
• In spring of 2004. the cable was drawn from shelf
  to VATS buildings - electricity company in
  Ventspils

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Starting the BalticOpen.Net

• In beginning of 2004. KTH and VeA started the
  project BalticOpen.Net with main goals
• Establish the connection between KTH and VeA over
  sumbarine cable, and demostrate, that the cable
  is operational
• Demonstrate the possibilities to use the
  inexpensive network equipment for reaching 175km
  fiber without amplifiers in middle..
• Demonstrate the services for cable usage to
  build a interactive videoconferencing room in VeA
  for the joint lectures between KTH and VeA

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BalticOpen.Net Project group

• Principial prof. Bjorn Pehrson, KTH,
  IT-University, Telecomunications System Lab.
• Graduate students from KTH and partly -
  G.Neimanis from VeA side

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Tasks to establish the network connection

• To find and install inexpensive equipment, which
  can transmit light over fibre in distance 175 km
  (Fårösund Ventspils)
• To get the access to fibre pair from the one of
  the existing Stockholm/Uto Fårösund fibre cable
  owners
• To connect the network in VeA building with the
  fibre in Vats building ( 7 km distance over
  city)

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The main obstacles

• Limited budget only 21 000 EUR from Hulvent
  AB/Foco 16 for the equipment
• What transmitting equipment we can use?
• What results we will have from negotiations with
  the existing cable Stockholm Fårösund owners
• Unfinished negotiations between Hulvent AB and
  Stokab AB
• Time limit the project was arranged to work
  only till June 2004.

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The fibre cable

• It is a 38 pair fibre cable from Ericsson with
  the fiber type Corning. The cable included three
  sorts of fibers
• G.652c the most common
• G.654 low reduction
• G.655 low dispersion
• Signal loss lt 0,2 dB/km _at_ 1550nm
• Theoretical overall loss in distance Fårösund
  Ventspils is 34 dB.

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The link KTH VeA stretches

• KTH Utö, 81km, 28dB loss, KTH
• Utö Fårösund, 149 km, 29dB, Permission from
  Stokab AB
• Fårösund - Ventspils, 175 km, 34 dB. Permission
  from Hulvent
• Ventspils VeA. 7km. We decided to use the
  radiolink (Proxim MP.11a) until we have the
  fibres in Ventspils city

KTH
Uto
Farosund
VeA
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Transmitting equipment

• At beginning we started to look at equipment like
  LAN Switches with 100Base FX modules. We got
  some offers from companies to build a modified
  equipment with amplified laser modules.
• After negotiations with different manufacturers
  and their representatives (Transmode, Lumentis,
  Nortel etc) we started to explore the Gigabit
  connection possibilities too.

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Transmitting equipment

• After public procurement we got some offers and
  decided to use the Lumentis M301 with DWDM
  transceiver at very affordable price, and use it
  in all stretches - in Ventspils, Foresund and
  Kista (KTH). The network bandwidth is 2,5 Gbit /
  GE.
• In Utö is installed the the Lumentis repeater
  M101
• The devices are connected with network switches
  HP 2824 and HP 2524 with MiniGbic modules.

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Establishing the connection

• All fibre equipment was installed in late August,
  beginning of September 2004, after Baltcom
  Fiber - the new owner of cable Fårösund
  Ventspils made the necessary measurements and
  cable splitting to the patch panels.
• In 9. September 2004. we plugged the optical
  patch cables and in 13. September we officially
  started to use the link., and already in autumn
  2004. VeA students participate in
  videoconferencing course, which was held from
  KTH.

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Lumentis installation in Ventspils
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Future tasks

• Connect the VeA building to VATS with our own
  fiber cable, to get the full speed Gbit
  connection
• Connect the Ventspils International
  Radioastronomy Center (with biggest radio
  telescope in Northern Europe) which is located
  30 km from Ventspils to transmit VLBI data

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Future tasks

• Watch for inexpensive devices, which are capable
  to work at 10 Gbps to upgrade the existing
  connection.
• Connect the VeA and VIRAC to the GEANT over the
  link. The existing VeA connection to the GEANT
  PoP which is located in capital Riga is only 4
  Mbps.
• Demonstrate the OpenNet (Operator neutral
  network) possibilities. For example, how the
  users in Ventspils can choose and access the
  ISP's in Sweden.

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References and contacts

• Bjorn Pehrson - bjorn_at_it.kth.se
• Gints Neimanis gints_at_venta.lv
• www.balticopen.net project website
• www.it.kth.se IT University at KTH
• www.venta.lv - VeA website
• www.ventspils.lv Ventspils website
• www.lumentis.se Lumentis website
• bcfiber.lv Baltcom Fiber