Breaking News - Networking:

FiberCo Facilitates Advanced Optical Network For Florida

FiberCo, a fiber holding company supporting U.S. research and higher education, announced that Florida LambdaRail LLC (FLR), a consortium of nine public and private Florida universities has purchased the rights to 1,540 route miles of dark fiber and colocation services from FiberCo, under an agreement with Level 3 Communications Inc. Utilizing FiberCo's national-scale wholesale pricing structure and streamlined fiber acquisition process, FLR acquired the dark fiber at a significantly discounted rate and will use the network facilities to create an advanced optical network that connects campuses and institutions across the state.

The network, Florida LambdaRail, once complete, will enable collaboration, advanced communication, and research among these universities in ways not possible using existing networks by providing enhanced network performance and bandwidth capabilities. The new FLR network will also enable consortium members to have direct connectivity to a wide range of domestic and international research networks, including Internet2's Abilene Network and National LambdaRail, of which the FLR will be a regional connecting network.

The FLR consortium is made up of nine major Florida universities, including Florida Atlantic University, Florida Institute of Technology, Florida International University, Florida State University, Nova Southeastern University, University of Central Florida, University of Florida, University of Miami, and University of West Florida. These top universities recognize the benefits of advanced networking and its ability to facilitate new and innovative research and instruction across a broad range of studies and disciplines.

"High-speed optical networking is a critical tool for achieving sophisticated learning, research, and collaboration as well as a key differentiator for recruiting and retaining talented researchers, faculty, students and education professionals to the state of Florida," said Larry Conrad chairman of FLR LLC and Florida State University CIO. "The dark fiber and collocation services acquired through FiberCo serve as a foundation for the FLR, enabling us to build a regional backbone network for the future. The network promises to provide our researchers, students and faculty a test-bed for innovation and we are excited for the possibilities that this network may help them to achieve. It will essentially eliminate the issue of 'place' for collaboration with our colleagues across the country and indeed around the world."

Established last year by Internet2, a consortium led by 207 universities working with government and industry to develop and deploy advanced networking technologies, FiberCo provides a means for acquiring, holding, and assigning dark fiber assets on both the national and the regional scales and on behalf of the higher education community.

"FiberCo's goal is to assist the Internet2 membership in acquiring critical optical networking assets to facilitate the development of advanced regional fiber infrastructure. This fiber assignment represents a key step towards FLR's plans to deploy leading-edge optical capabilities throughout Florida and is our largest placement of fiber with a regional network to date," said Steve Corbato, director of network initiatives for Internet2. "This highly collaborative effort by private and public Florida research universities highlights the leadership of these institutions in providing advanced Internet technology to their constituents and serves as a model for other institutions around the country."

Under the agreement with Level 3 Communications, FiberCo has the ability to provision both from an initial allocation of more than 2,600 route miles and from future acquisitions of dark fiber on Level 3's national footprint.