Low Cost, Long Haul Gigabit Ethernet

Alan CowieAARNet Pty LtdJanuary 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 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 Sydney

alan.cowie@aarnet.edu.au