Case Study Building A Regional Optical Network RON

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Case Study Building A Regional Optical Network
(RON)

• The Quilt Fiber Workshop
• June 21-23, 2004

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Presentation Objective

• To share the issues involved with implementing a
  RON and the associated container corporation with
  The Quilt Fiber Workshop participants
• To provide workshop participants with examples of
  how SLR dealt with and continues to deal with
  these issues

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The Vision

• Southern Light Rail (SLR)
• Regional access to Atlanta National LambdaRail
  (NLR) node
• International Connectivity
• OM of National Science Foundation (NSF) Atlanta
  Extensible Terascale Facility (ETF) hub
• Southern Crossroads (SoX) operations

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Southern Light Rail (SLR)Spheres of Influence
SOX
NLR
GT Europe
ETF
GT Lorraine
GTREP
Bio-ring
Peachnet
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Getting Started Governance Issues

• Board Directors of vs. Board of Trustees
• Advisory Board
• Non-voting
• Voting
• Hybrid Advisory Board elects Board seats

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Getting Started Business Plan

• Budget
• Pro-forma
• Detailed
• Leadership
• Sponsor (champion)
• Directors officers
• Source of Funds (especially seed funding)

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Getting Started - Business Plan

• Bandwidth Pricing Models
• Costs
• Marginal vs. Market based
• Equipment replacement - fully loaded
• Cost center rate study
• Other telecom services
• New service offerings
• Marketing

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Getting Started Business Model

• Affiliate or cooperative corporation vs.
  independent corporation (i.e. LLC)
• Sources of funds
• Flow of service and charges
• Capture total costs

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Next Steps Fiber Acquisition

• IRU / Lease / Trade / Donation
• Metro
• Rural
• Strategic Alliances
• Private sector I/CLEC / IXC / CATV / utilities
• Public sector
• State Board of Regents
• Education and Research Consortiums

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Next Steps Equipment Procurement

• SONET
• Ethernet
• CWDM
• DWDM

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Other Issues

• Politics (the science of relationship building)
• Multi-level selling (top-down and bottom-up)
• What do I get for my money?
• What, no vote?
• Paradigm Shifts
• Shared network infrastructure vs. dedicated
  point-to-point connectivity
• Sales Marketing (Business Development)
• Campus Network Infrastructure
• Dedicated fiber connectivity to the lab

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Other Issues (paperwork, paperwork more
paperwork)

• Organizational
• Articles of Incorporation Bylaws
• IRS 501(c)(3) filing
• Procurement (pre-selection)
• Fiber Equipment RFP (Mandatories / Desirables)
• Vendor relations (post-selection)
• Contracts
• MSA (Collocation IRU)
• Vendor
• Members (Participants)
• MOUs / MOAs

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SLR Distributed GigaPOP

• Georgia Institute of Technology - Atlanta
• 56 Marietta Carrier Hotel
• Abundance of fiber
• Carrier neutral
• 345 Courtland Street
• NLR Atlanta node

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SLR Distributed GigaPOP
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SLR - NLR Access

• Georgia Access Network 1
• Emory
• Georgia State University
• Morehouse School of Medicine
• Georgia Access Network 2
• University of Georgia - Athens
• Medical College of Georgia Augusta
• Georgia Tech Savannah
• SoX Universities
• Access Network 3 South Carolina
• Access Network 4 - Alabama

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SLR - NLR Access Network 1
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SLR - NLR Access Network 2
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Strategic Alliance Proposal

• The Deal
• SLR or educational entity provides optronics
• NOC / OM
• To be negotiated / contracted with fiber provider
• Bandwidth
• Shared between both parties to the deal in direct
  proportion to their financial contribution
• Current Status
• Fiber Providers Approached (CLECs, Cable
  Providers, Utilities, etc.)
• Utility has agreed in concept that proposal is
  feasible next steps vendor involvement
  technical issue assessment

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Other Regional Locations SLR-NLR Access
Networks 3, 4N

• Southern Crossroads (SoX)
• South Carolina
• Qwest fiber?
• Alabama
• Level 3 fiber?
• Tennessee / Kentucky
• Qwest fiber?
• Leased Waves? (commercial or private network)

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NLR Access Network 3 4
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Questions Comments
Thank You