1. ICG BRAN Extension
Marla Meehl
NCAR
07/17/02

2. Technical Advantages
Long term technical goal of BRAN to access central offices
Eliminates last mile costs
Increases flexibility
Increases vendor competition
Virtually unlimited access to bandwidth on dark fiber
Very flexible configuration to meet constituent WAN networking needs
Expands BRAN to the national fiber infrastructure
Long term growth potential

3. Cost Advantages Extremely cost effective
NCAR/DOC/City currently have an OC3 to Denver for our WAN connectivity (155Mbps)
5,745.81/month; $68,949.72; $482,648.04/7 years
This bandwidth is inadequate
We will have to upgrade to an OC12 in the next couple of months
$10K/month for a leased OC12 to Denver; $120,000/year; $840,000/7 years
We would pay $1,675.58/mo for a pair of fibers from the ICG CO in Boulder to the FRGP
$20,106.96/year; $140,748.72/7 years
This saves these partners $699, at a minimum over 7 years
An OC12 would not last us 7 years, so the savings is really greater.
This does not include CU-Boulder savings

4. Overall Advantages
Increasing capacity is relatively easy, cost effective and fast:
Cisco 6509 Ethernet switches can support 1Gbps (1000Mbps) and 10Gbps (10,000Mbps)
We already have the hardware since it is used in the LAN
In order to get the the 10 times increase in capacity to 10Gbps, we only have to buy a card for the 6509 switches at each end
We don't have to pay to install a new expensive recurring cost circuit - we already have the fiber
This scales beyond 10Gbps - once we have the fiber, we can continue to grow the network as needed

5. Overall Advantages
This provides the necessary dark fiber access national networks such as LightRail/Teragrid/etc.
This allows a reduction in service costs for existing services for all BRAN partners since we eliminate the distance charge to the Boulder CO by using BRAN
This was a long time goal of BRAN
Provide faster access to the FRGP and the services there: Commodity Internet, Abilene, intra-FRGP, and future services