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</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body lang=EN-US link=blue vlink=purple><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>I had a similar initial reaction, but would guess the claim is based on one of two distinction: 1) it being “passive optics”, based on the claim of energy efficiency savings or 2) it is a LAN, not a Metro or Wide area network.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>Gary<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><div style='border:none;border-top:solid #B5C4DF 1.0pt;padding:3.0pt 0in 0in 0in'><p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif"'>From:</span></b><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif"'> 1st-mile-nm-bounces+ggomes=soundviewnet.com@mailman.dcn.org [mailto:1st-mile-nm-bounces+ggomes=soundviewnet.com@mailman.dcn.org] <b>On Behalf Of </b>Christopher Mitchell<br><b>Sent:</b> Saturday, March 02, 2013 5:16 AM<br><b>To:</b> Richard Lowenberg<br><b>Cc:</b> 1st mile nm<br><b>Subject:</b> Re: [1st-mile-nm] Sandia’s new fiber optic network is world’s largest<o:p></o:p></span></p></div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><div><p class=MsoNormal>It is an interesting story, but by what measure is it the largest in the world?<o:p></o:p></p><div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal>Two coops in the Dakotas worked together to build a FTTH network over 10,000 sq miles. If I had to guess, Chattanooga's FTTH network has over 50,000 ports between triple play customers and electric grid devices over 600 sq miles.<o:p></o:p></p></div></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><br clear=all><o:p></o:p></p><div><p class=MsoNormal>Christopher Mitchell<br>Director, Telecommunications as Commons Initiative<br>Institute for Local Self-Reliance<o:p></o:p></p><div><p class=MsoNormal><br><a href="http://www.muninetworks.org" target="_blank">http://www.muninetworks.org</a><o:p></o:p></p><div><p class=MsoNormal>@communitynets<o:p></o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal>612-276-3456 x209<o:p></o:p></p></div></div></div><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></p><div><p class=MsoNormal>On Fri, Mar 1, 2013 at 5:42 PM, Richard Lowenberg <<a href="mailto:rl@1st-mile.com" target="_blank">rl@1st-mile.com</a>> wrote:<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>February 28, 2013<br><a href="https://share.sandia.gov/news/resources/news_releases/fiber_optic/" target="_blank">https://share.sandia.gov/news/resources/news_releases/fiber_optic/</a><br><br>Fiber optic network saves energy, money<br><br>ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Sandia National Laboratories has become a pioneer<br>in large-scale passive optical networks, building the largest fiber<br>optical local area network in the world.<br><br>The network pulls together 265 buildings and 13,000 computer network<br>ports and brings high-speed communication to some of the labs’ most<br>remote technical areas for the first time. And it will save an estimated<br>$20 million over five years through energy and other savings and not<br>having to buy replacement equipment. Sandia expects to reduce energy<br>costs by 65 percent once the network is fully operational.<br><br>Fiber offers far more capacity, is more secure and reliable and is less<br>expensive to maintain and operate than the traditional network using<br>copper cables.<br><br>An optical local area network (LAN) gives people phone, data and video<br>services using half-inch fiber optic cables made of 288 individual<br>fibers, instead of the conventional 4-inch copper cables. Copper cables<br>used to fill up underground conduits and required steel overhead racks<br>of connecting cable, along with distribution rooms filled with separate<br>frames for copper voice and data cables. The fiber distribution system<br>uses only part of the conduit and needs only a 2- by 3-foot cable box.<br><br>“The frames go away, and the walls are bare and the tray empties,” said<br>senior engineer Steve Gossage, who has spent his 36-year career at<br>Sandia in advanced information and network systems engineering.<br><br>The national laboratory has always pushed for speed beyond the fastest<br>transmission rate available, Gossage said. “When people were working in<br>much slower data rates, kilobit-type rates at short distances, we were<br>trying to get 10 times the distance and 10 times the speed,” he said.<br><br>Adopting fiber optics<br><br>Sandia began looking at fiber optics early in the technology’s<br>development because of its promise of higher bandwidth — greater<br>communication speed — at longer distances. The labs started converting<br>from copper in the 1980s, first installing then-emerging fiber optics in<br>a single building and bumping that facility to megabit speeds. “Today<br>we’re way past that. We’re at 10 gigabit-type rates and looking hard at<br>100,” Gossage said.<br><br>After years of planning, Sandia completed a formal network plan in late<br>2008 and sought competitive bids the following year. Sandia selected<br>Tellabs of Naperville, Ill., as the equipment vendor for the network,<br>and Gossage and his colleagues simultaneously began to jumpstart the<br>deployment of the fiber infrastructure and set up a test lab to validate<br>the performance of configurations for the equipment and various network<br>functions. The technology began moving to desktops in 2011, and by the<br>end of 2012, Sandia had converted more than 90 percent of bulky copper<br>cable to a fiber optics LAN.<br><br>Sandia, which will spend about $15 million on the project, needs superb<br>computing capability for the problems it tackles as part of its support<br>for the mission for the National Nuclear Security Administration.<br><br>“Whether it’s a materials science problem or modeling an event, we need<br>a lot of data and a lot of processing capability,” Gossage said. “We<br>need to be able to see it, we need to be able to view it, we need to be<br>able to put teams together. This is a large laboratory, deeply stocked<br>with scientists and engineers and test labs. For the analyses we get,<br>the problems are not small and they’re not easy.”<br><br>Since its first experience with fiber optics, Sandia envisioned being<br>able to use multiple wavelengths in a very high bandwidth single strand<br>reaching the farthest tech areas. But decades ago, when Sandia began<br>putting in single-mode fiber to desks and adding underground fiber<br>capabilities, the technology wasn’t quite mature enough to take<br>advantage of fiber optics’ inherent multiple wavelengths and speeds.<br><br>So Sandia continued to install the fiber optics cable foundation and<br>waited as the technology developed, and moved quickly when commercial<br>optical networks began deploying voice, data and video to large<br>collections of homes and offices.<br><br>“There weren’t that many unknowns for us because we had been thinking<br>about ways to do this on a large scale for quite a while,” Gossage said.<br>“We had already thought through what this might mean to us, what it<br>might mean to our lifecycle costs and where the investments would be,<br>and we were already pretty comfortable with fiber and the technologies<br>that go with it.”<br><br>Copper versus fiber optics<br><br>Buildings with conventional copper LANs have separate networks for<br>phones, computers, wireless, security and so on. Fiber optics puts<br>everything in a single network cable. That eliminates a large number of<br>power-consuming switches and routers and makes the network simpler to<br>operate and cheaper to install. Since it requires less space, energy and<br>maintenance costs go down.<br><br>“As we research and deploy new technologies, our main objectives are to<br>enable the labs’ mission, decrease life-cycle costs and if possible<br>reduce our footprint on the environment. With the deployment of passive<br>optical networks we have been able to meet and exceed all of these<br>objectives,” said Sandia manager Jeremy Banks.<br><br>Where a conventional LAN serving 900 customers requires a space the<br>size of three double ovens, an optical network serving 8,000 requires a<br>microwave oven-sized space. Where copper cable required Sandia to<br>maintain and manage 600 separate switches in the field, optical LAN<br>allows it to operate a data center in one building and simple, standard<br>ports to offices. Because fiber optics reaches beyond the 100-meter<br>radius that once was the standard from a wiring closet to a desktop,<br>remote areas such as the National Solar Thermal Test Facility have<br>high-speed communications for the first time.<br><br>The only copper wire for most of Sandia today is a short connection<br>from the wall to the desktop. Everything behind the wall is fiber.<br><br>Moving away from copper wasn’t easy. It required new technology for the<br>core communication system and made Sandia its own network provider,<br>Gossage said. He credited a central team of about 10 people across<br>Sandia who worked together every day throughout 2011, plus sub-teams<br>totaling about 40 people. The effort included engineering design,<br>information technology, network systems, computing, facilities, security<br>and people in the field pulling cable and connecting ports.<br><br>Still to come<br><br>Sandia is recycling copper as it’s replaced, which keeps tons of<br>valuable material out of a landfill. The estimated $80,000 for the<br>copper will offset some of the fiber optics cost.<br><br>The labs also must turn off hundreds of switches before it can fully<br>realize the energy savings. That will take longer because it depends on<br>such things as staffing, Gossage said.<br><br>More change could be coming. A small trial is under way for<br>voice-over-fiber — putting data and voice in one system rather than the<br>two Sandia uses today. Testing shows Sandia can protect voice running<br>through a congested circuit — what Gossage calls “a Mother’s Day test,”<br>when everyone calls at the same time. The Gigabit Passive Optical<br>Network standard Sandia works with can dedicate part of the bandwidth<br>and give priority to selected traffic such as voice. So calls would go<br>through even with heavy competition from data.<br><br>Sandia also is working with a small number of researchers who need more<br>bandwidth than they’re getting. The labs’ needs are ahead of the market<br>but it’s pushing for next-generation increases in speed, Gossage said.<br><br>Communication speed improves every five to eight years. With copper,<br>each improvement required replacing large, heavy bundles of jacketed<br>cable to re-engineer them to perform at the new speed, he said. Fiber<br>optical cable offers a bandwidth good for 25 years or more.<br><br>“We change the wavelength, we change the modulation rate, we don’t get<br>back in the ceiling, we don’t get back in the customer’s office,”<br>Gossage said. “So our return on investment, our capital investment, our<br>operational investment, the impact on our customers — everything gets<br>better.”<br><br>Sandia National Laboratories is a multiprogram laboratory operated by<br>Sandia Corporation, a wholly owned subsidiary of Lockheed Martin<br>Corporation, for the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Nuclear<br>Security Administration. With main facilities in Albuquerque, N.M., and<br>Livermore, Calif., Sandia has major R&D responsibilities in national<br>security, energy and environmental technologies, and economic<br>competitiveness.<br><br>Sandia news media contact: Sue Holmes, <a href="mailto:sholmes@sandia.gov">sholmes@sandia.gov</a> , (505)<br>844-6362<br><br><br><br>--------------------------------<br>Richard Lowenberg, Executive Dir.<br>1st-Mile Institute, <a href="tel:505-603-5200">505-603-5200</a><br>Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504<br><a href="http://www.1st-mile.com" target="_blank">www.1st-mile.com</a> <a href="mailto:rl@1st-mile.com">rl@1st-mile.com</a><br>--------------------------------<br>_______________________________________________<br>1st-mile-nm mailing list<br><a href="mailto:1st-mile-nm@mailman.dcn.org">1st-mile-nm@mailman.dcn.org</a><br><a href="http://www2.dcn.org/mailman/listinfo/1st-mile-nm" target="_blank">http://www2.dcn.org/mailman/listinfo/1st-mile-nm</a><o:p></o:p></p></div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div><div class=MsoNormal align=center style='text-align:center'><hr size=1 width="100%" noshade style='color:#A0A0A0' align=center></div><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'>No virus found in this message.<br>Checked by AVG - <a href="http://www.avg.com">www.avg.com</a><br>Version: 2013.0.2899 / Virus Database: 2641/6141 - Release Date: 03/01/13<o:p></o:p></p></div></body></html>