OCTOBER 13, 2008 -- The Northern Tier Network Consortium (NTNC) has selected Infinera (search for Infinera) for a regional optical network linking nine states from Washington to Illinois. The new network will connect 27 member universities via Infinera's Digital Optical Networks technology.
With endpoints in Seattle and Chicago, the Northern Tier Network Consortium network links the states of Washington, Idaho, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, and Illinois. The new network will be used to provide multi-wavelength networking resources to researchers at member institutions and to provide connectivity to the nationwide Internet2 network.
Infinera says the NTNC Consortium chose its equipment for the system's flexibility in meeting the needs of the research community and its ease of service delivery. The Infinera optical system provides 100 Gbits/sec of capacity on every line card. The intelligence of Infinera's GMPLS-powered network operating system makes the system easy and quick to install and add capacity, the company adds.
"Members of the Northern Tier Network Consortium went through a very rigorous selection process and Infinera came out on top," said Bonnie Neas, vice president for information technology at North Dakota State University. Features that impressed them included the simplicity of deploying the Infinera platform, the wide range of services it supports, the ease of adding new services to the platform, and the responsiveness of Infinera's customer support team, according to the company. Neas was quoted as saying she was particularly impressed with how quickly an Infinera network can be installed and provisioned, in comparison with many other long-haul systems which can take weeks. "Infinera was literally provisioned on day one," she said.
The NTNC includes the Pacific Northwest Gigapop, which supports the network in Washington; the University of Montana and Montana State University, which support the Idaho and Montana portions; and the University of North Dakota, North Dakota State University, and North Dakota state government, which support the North Dakota portion. The NTNC network also includes capacity provided by previously announced Infinera customers SDN Networks (in South Dakota) and BOREAS-Net (which has an Infinera network spanning Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Iowa). Last year, Internet2 completed the deployment of a nationwide Infinera network that delivers a minimum of 100 Gbits/sec of capacity to every point of presence on the Internet2 network.
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