Consortium to provide first Canadian optical Internet network
By ROBERT PEASE
A consortium led by Bell Canada will collaborate with a not-for-profit industry-led corporation to build Canada`s first national optical Internet network. The network, called CA*net3, will use relatively new Internet Protocol (IP)-over-dense wavelength-division multiplexing (DWDM) technology.
canarie Inc. (Ottawa, Canada), short for Canadian Network for the Advancement of Research, Industry and Education, purchased capacity for CA*net3 on Bell Canada`s fiber-optic backbone network, currently under construction as a national telecommunications facility. Bell Canada, along with its consortium partners, Nortel (Brampton, ON, Canada), Cisco Systems Canada Co. (Toronto), Newbridge Networks Corp. (Kanata, ON, Canada), Cambrian Systems Corp. (Kanata, ON, Canada), and JDS Fitel (Nepean, ON, Canada), are building the new network from 12 cross-country fibers previously purchased from Canada`s Ledcor/Fonorola consortium.
Bell Canada, a traditional provincial telephone service provider in Ontario and Quebec, already has the core infrastructure underway. CA*net3 will provide a network system to support Canada`s high-technology industry and research community, much like the Abilene Internet2 project in the United States (see Lightwave, June 1998, page 1). It will be available to researchers at universities and government laboratories engaged in research and applications development relating to high-performance networks. These sectors now use canarie`s current research network, CA*net II, introduced in 1997.
The new initiative will not compete with or replace commercial Internet services. Instead, it will provide additional bandwidth and throughput that will enable researchers to collaborate on the development and testing of new applications and technologies not yet possible on commercial systems. It is expected that CA*net3 eventually will replace the existing CA*net II. Until that time, CA*net II will run parallel to the new systems until the network is robust and stable.
"With CA*net3, we`re dealing with very much the same community as the Abilene network, only in Canada," says Andrew Bjerring, president and chief executive officer for canarie. "The difference is in our using IP-over-DWDM technology, which is not intended to be used in Abilene and other similar U.S. systems. We believe this will provide us with a much more cost-effective network."
CA*net3 differs dramatically from traditional network architectures. Most Internet systems are built to include voice capability and are based on a three-layer configuration, using Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) on top of SONET over the fiber-optic cable. In the United States, Internet2 and the National Science Foundation (NSF)-funded vBNS also plan to use a high-speed Internet for educational and research facilities. Both plan to use Synchronous Optical Network (SONET) facilities and IP-over-SONET routers.
canarie`s CA*net3 system is planned for Internet use first and voice telephony second, allowing migration from the reliance on traditional voice infrastructures using SONET. Services provided by SONET architectures, such as protection, redundancy, and restoration, will be accomplished by new IP technology, particularly multi-protocol label switching. Redundancy and restoration capabilities will be provided by the routers, using link-layer technology.
Link-layer technology is a critical feature of CA*net 3. The network`s link-layer connection of 32 dedicated wavelengths on a multiplexed optical fiber will provide wide bandwidth. In turn, the optical fibers will be directly connected to the routers.
"We`re using Cisco`s GSR 12000 routers directly connected with transponders into the wave-division couplers that couple the wavelengths right into the fiber," says Bill St. Arnaud, director of network projects at canarie. "We`re still using SONET framing to encapsulate the data, but we`re not using any SONET network protocols for restoration. We`re currently using SONET framing, and hope to either replace it or combine it with new Gigabit Ethernet framing."
Besides Cisco`s contribution of routers for CA*net 3, the other consortium members are providing their own expertise to the project. JDS Fitel will supply optical components to the development of the optical Internet. Newbridge and Cambrian will provide ATM infrastructure equipment and photonic networking solutions that will enable the delivery of differentiated IP services and high-bandwidth applications. Nortel`s contribution is the supply of infrastructure equipment that will enable the IP traffic to be carried directly over the optical channels on the DWDM network.
"A number of wavelengths on Bell Canada`s backbone system will be used to provide traditional SONET telecommunications services across the national network," says St. Arnaud. "And a number of the wavelengths are reserved for us to provide direct IP-over-fiber for CA*net3."
The Bell Canada system is a point-to-point architecture, using IP routing protocols. It should appear similar to a SONET structure with route diversity and restoration capability, without the SONET technologies. "That`s one of the key components of this architecture and the essence of the whole project," adds St. Arnaud. "To look at doing restoration and protection at layer 3 rather than at the link or physical layers--that`s really a major component of what this project is all about."
CA*net3 will not connect to any public Internet, at least not in its early stages. Nor will it carry telephony services. Individual institutions using the network can access it through 13 gigabit points-of-presence (gigaPOPs). The gigaPOPs are already in place, installed as part of CA*net II.
"A previous Lightwave article [see Lightwave, August 1998, page 47] talked about deploying DWDM into the metropolitan areas," says St. Anaud. "What we`re doing is taking that concept and extending it to the wide area."
CA*net3 is expected to be fully active by the end of this year at a price of more than $120 million. One-quarter of that figure will be federally funded from a $55-million allocation to canarie in the 1998 federal budget. The members of Bell Canada`s consortium will each make contributions to the program as well.
"We`re certainly looking forward to working with our partners in the other countries involved," says Bjerring. "We`ve all got a lot to learn, but the potential here is so great that we`re really pleased to be taking a first step...and we know there will be many others." o