Low Cost, Long Haul Gigabit Ethernet Alan Cowie AARNet Pty Ltd January 2004

Outline ● Opportunity ● Geography/Building Blocks ● Proof of Concept ● Design ● Resource Requirements ● Outcome ● References/URLs

Opportunity ● The main campus of the University of New England (UNE) is located in Armidale, Northern NSW. ● UNE required a replacement for their expensive, ATM based tail link (8Mbps on E3) to the AARNet hub in Sydney. ● Transgrid offered UNE some surplus bandwidth on existing Transgrid infrastructure. ● AARNet wanted to explore low cost, long haul opportunities.

Geography

330kV Tower

The Transgrid Network

Concept ● Transgrid has long run fibre. ● AARNet is a Carrier and has network building and operating experience. ● AARNet and Transgrid formed a partnership to provide bandwidth to UNE. ● Excess capacity could be sold to other customers. ● UNE wanted a cost effective IP/ethernet service from Sydney to Armidale.

Building Blocks ● TG had installed fibre in the Overhead Earth wire on some sections of their 330kV network. ● The fibre is brought to the ground and terminated only at substations and powerstations. ● The Armidale to Sydney section had some long fibre runs (>80km). ● AARNet was already using Cisco CWDM equipment with very good optical properties.

Building Blocks 2 ● The CWDM GBICS support 1.25-Gbps full- duplex links with an Optical link budget of better than 30 dB. ● Cisco T Gigabit ethernet Switches. Each supports 10 GBIC interfaces and two copper 10/100/1000 ports.

Available Fibre A endB endKMAttn dB ArmidaleTamworth TamworthMuswellbrook MuswellbrookLiddell LiddellNewcastle NewcastleEraring225 EraringVales Point327.6 Vales PointMunmorah82.29 MunmorahSydney North Sydney NorthSydney West389.04

Proof of Concept ● The Tamworth to Muswellbrook leg was the longest at 130km with a 29.3dB optical loss. ● The PoC was tested on this leg using 1470nm and 1490nm CWDM GBICs in borrowed Cisco switches. ● When tested, the 130km link came up straight away and ran without error for the duration of the test. Power meter readings showed ample signal. ● The 1550nm GBIC were expected to perform better than the 1470 & 1490nm test optics.

Design ● Each switch is a OEO signal regenerator and a breakout node. ● Each switch can support 5 north/south GE paths. ● No provision for OOB management ● Customer separation by QinQ VLAN stacking ● Radio last leg until Broadway substation completed

Multiplex Design ● Initial design supports only 1 GigE path due to MUX losses ● Shorter runs can support CWDM mux ● Longer runs will need amplification to support CWDM mux

Resource Requirements ● >500kms of fibre ● 6 x Cisco T Gigabit ethernet switches ● 12 x Cisco 1000BASE-CWDM GBIC 1550 nm ● A few UPSs ● Patch leads ● Fibre tails from the TG sites to the end users ● Clue

Outcomes ● Lit up >500km fibre run with Gigabit Ethernet. ● Six potential customer breakout/access nodes. ● Total cost for all active/optical gear less than cost of one SDH node. ● Potential for up to 8 GE paths.

References/URLs ● ● ● ● ● ● ● Alan Cowie – AARNet Sydney