Ciena Corp. and Internet2 are partnering on a 100G national network in support of the U.S. Unified Community Anchor Network (U.S. UCAN) project. Internet2 is upgrading its national backbone network through a federal stimulus grant from the National Telecommunications and Information Administration’s Broadband Technology Opportunities Program (BTOP).
Through its partnership with Ciena, Internet2 will increase its network’s bandwidth from approximately 100 Gigabits per second to 8.8 Terabits per second, providing the necessary capabilities to connect more than 200,000 community anchor institutions nationwide as part of the U.S. UCAN project. The new network will also support the research and higher education community’s growing need for greater capacity.
Developed by Internet2 under its BTOP grant, U.S. UCAN is intended to help connect community anchor institutions, including K-12 schools, libraries, community colleges, health centers, hospitals, and public safety organizations, to next-generation Internet-based applications using the Internet2 Network. The U.S. UCAN project will enable these organizations to serve their constituents with telemedicine, distance learning and other advanced applications that are not currently possible with consumer-grade Internet service, according to a spokesperson.
“This new collaboration with Ciena to create a groundbreaking new national backbone scalable to 88 waves of 100G builds on a long-standing partnership. After several successful field trials with Ciena, we are confident in its field-proven technology, strong product roadmap, and focus on optimizing total costs to support a large scale deployment like this,” says Robert Vietzke, executive director of network services at Internet2. “We are excited about the directionless, colorless ROADM capabilities and the focus on intelligent automation as it reflects the need for flexibility, scalability and resiliency as is required by the anchor institutions, research sites and education campuses we serve. These capabilities will be critical to supporting the diverse application needs of the users on our network.”
Internet2 will use Ciena’s ActivFlex 6500 Packet-Optical Platform equipped with WaveLogic coherent optical processors for its new network and will leverage its ability to deliver high network capacity, while reducing overall operational expenses through automated wavelength provisioning and restoration.