Low Cost, Long Haul Gigabit Ethernet

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

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 3550-12T Gigabit ethernet Switches. Each supports 10 GBIC interfaces and two copper 10/100/1000 ports.

Available Fibre A end B end KM Attn dBArmidale Tamworth 106 24.18Tamworth Muswellbrook 130 29.3Muswellbrook Liddell 19 4.96Liddell Newcastle 104 22.69Newcastle Eraring 22 5Eraring Vales Point 32 7.6Vales Point Munmorah 8 2.29Munmorah Sydney North 80 17.8Sydney North Sydney West 38 9.04

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 3550-12T 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 • http://www.aarnet.edu.au/ • http://www.une.edu.au/ • http://www.transgrid.com.au/about_us/inset.html • http://www.cisco.com/warp/public/cc/so/neso/olso/nesocdwm/cgbic_ov.htm • http://mangrove.nswrno.net.au/dist/public/tgune/unetgnet2_frame.htm • http://xl.nswrno.net.au/tgune/ • Alan Cowie – AARNet Sydneyalan.cowie@aarnet.edu.au

Low Cost, Long Haul Gigabit Ethernet