Dark Fiber Project

Home Core Technologies Core Technologies Projects Dark Fiber Project

Project Contacts:
Chuck Greer 459-4678
Brad Smith 459-2370

• Purpose
• Scope

General Overview

The California Central Coast Counties of Santa Cruz, San Benito, Monterey, San Luis Obispo, and the Santa Maria Valley area of northern Santa Barbara County already have varying degrees of access to broadband services, with greater access in the more densely populated coastal areas and lesser access in lower density inland and agricultural areas. The region's access to broadband, however, lags behind opportunities in larger metropolitan regions. There is a general need for coordinated public and private action to increase access to broadband services, competitive choices for businesses and consumers, and greater utilization by firms and workers.

As a rural region, the Central Coast economy faces competitive challenges relative to larger, more urban regions in Northern and Southern California. Increased access to broadband and greater usage of it are important for addressing some of these challenges. Broadband and information and computer technologies can create new market opportunities, overcome locational barriers, and promote efficiency for business. These technologies are also the underpinnings of the networked economy that is creating new types of competitive advantages, business models, and relationships between businesses, employees, customers, and communities. Expanded use of broadband can help existing Central Coast businesses compete and prosper in the networked economy, and attract new businesses to the region. The economic performance of those regions that lag in expanding broadband access and usage will suffer. This means that the public sector needs to take an active role in forming partnerships with telecommunications providers, businesses, universities, economic development organizations, and others to improve broadband access and use.

Dark fiber or unlit fiber (or fiber) is the name given to fiber optic cables which have yet to be used. The cables are hence not yet connected to any device, and are only there for future usage. The term was originally used when talking about the potential network capacity of telecommunication infrastructure, but now also refers to a form of telecommunication network product that is purchased by network operators from fiber providers.

Purpose

UCSC is facing increasing bandwidth needs which leads to the competitive issues described previously. The purpose of this project is to resolve these competitive challenges by bringing broadband fiber optic connectivity to UCSC. Brad Smith, Director of Core Technologies within Information Technology Services at the University of California, Santa Cruz is leading a long term project to provide broadband fiber connectivity to schools and local governments around the Monterey Bay.

Scope

The Corporation for Education Network Initiatives in California (CENIC) in partnership with the City of Monterey and California State University, Monterey Bay were able to construct a local-area, high-speed network. Similarly, UCSC is partnering with CENIC, local government agencies, schools, non-profit organizations and private industry in making a fiber optic connection to the CENIC endpoint in Monterey and over to Salinas which provides connectivity to San Jose. San Jose hosts a primary Metropolitan Fiber Network Gateway connecting the San Francisco Bay area and the rest of the United States. Further, to increase reliability, UCSC is also partnering with a private vendor for managed broadband service which will provide a secondary source of connectivity and reducing the risk of a single point of failure.

The Dark Fiber project, under the management of CENIC, has been underway for most of 2008. The original completion date was set for early spring of 2009. That date has been extended due to several environmental and financial issues. Work will commence again in January 2009. The construction work to facilitate the campus fiber runs has been completed by PP&C and ITS personnel and their contractors. The revised schedule indicates that the fiber run should be complete by May. Once that is complete, we can take measurements in order to provide optical equipment specifications that will allow the path to be lit. It will take approximately three months to receive and install the equipment, which means that the bandwidth for research applications should be available by August, 2009.

.