OCTOBER 12, 2006 -- The City of Amsterdam has begun construction of its city-wide fiber-optic network. The network is expected to create an open and future-secure communication infrastructure through private and public collaboration. The rollout of the network starts in the Zeeburg district of Amsterdam, followed by Oost/Watergraafsmeer and Osdorp.
The network is designed to provide a new and advanced communication infrastructure for the inhabitants of Amsterdam, giving them a wider choice of new service packages including telephony, TV, and Internet access at competitive prices. In addition to the usual network services, such as download services and the ability for consumers to easily share their own multimedia material with family and friends, the intention is to provide additional applications with added social value, such as tele-care or tele-learning.
The activation and use of the network will be managed by Cisco (search for Cisco) partner BBNed, a supplier of broadband services to service providers. The target is to connect 450,000 citizens, institutes, and companies to the new fiber network before 2010.
Michiel Panders, commercial director, service providers at Cisco, says, "Working in cooperation with our partner BBNed, Cisco's Intelligent Information Network will form the foundation of the glass fiber network of Amsterdam. Ethernet fiber to the home (E-FTTH) is a fantastic broadband technology that offers many possibilities. Because of the collaboration between various parties, we are able to contribute to supplying new, innovative services to citizens and companies in Amsterdam."
A unique feature of the project is that it is conceived as three distinct layers that are independently realized by three parties. For the infrastructure, Glasvezelnet Amsterdam (GNA) is laying the network and will remain the owner of the physical ducting, glass fiber, and area supply buildings. ARCADIS is responsible for the preparations as well as the technical consultation and coordination of the network installation, as well as drafting the contracts for the service provision, management, and maintenance of the network. The combination of companies BAM/VandenBerg-Draka are building the network and will be responsible for the maintenance of the network. For the realization of the second layer, activation and utilization of the network, BBNed is leasing the fibers from GNA. The third layer is the service layer; all the service providers will be able to buy transport capacity on the open network in order to offer new services.
CityNet is based on an MPLS core network with an E-FTTH design using a per-service virtual local area network (VLAN) architecture. Each VLAN is terminated on a different physical port at the customer premises equipment, providing logical separation of services, for example Internet, video, and telephony services. This allows each end-user to have multiple subscriptions to a range of services, with each subscription invoiced separately by a specialist service provider. The Cisco E-FTTH offering includes Cisco 7600 Series Routers and the Cisco Catalyst 4500 Series Switches.
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