5 College Consortium Seeks to Buy Its Own Fiber Cable

Written by Colby C. Young    Sunday, 08 March 2009

Who is looking: Five Colleges Inc., the consortium comprising Amherst, Hampshire, Mount Holyoke, and Smith Colleges and the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, all in rural western Massachusetts. What they are looking for: To buy existing and new fiber-optic cable and install it to form a "ring" connecting the five institutions, with a "leg" connection from the ring to Springfield, Mass., to the south. The five institutions expect to take advantage of the current downturn in the fiber-optic industry to increase their data-network capacity, add redundant links to handle network outages, and reduce their local-circuit charges for data-communications services. The four private colleges have been paying what a technology official describes as "exorbitant" rates for local telecommunications circuits to connect their campus networks to the University of Massachusetts, which serves as the data-communications hub for the consortium. When the deal is finished, the colleges will no longer have to lease local circuits. "We're moving out of the era of leasing services and into the new era of owning our own assets," says Rosio Alvarez, associate chancellor for information technologies at UMass. The state university, which has a 10-year lease on a fiber connection from its campus network to Springfield, no longer faces the same local-circuit costs that its partners do, but it is interested in the higher-bandwidth connections to the colleges and the redundant connectivity that the ring and new leg will provide. How they are going to use it: The five institutions, which have cooperated on information-technology projects since the 1980s, will have new capacity for "all sorts of high-bandwidth applications among the campuses," including videoconferencing, says Ms. Alvarez. The colleges expect to pay less for their connections to the Internet and to the Internet2 research-and-education network because they will get volume discounts. From Springfield, the consortium will use the services of fiber-optic carriers that provide access to the Internet and Internet2 backbone networks. Amherst, Mount Holyoke, Smith, and UMass have faculty members who collaborate with researchers at other institutions over the Internet2 network. The ring the colleges expect to create will have a perimeter of about 50 miles. College officials hope to have portions of it "lit up," or activated, by next spring. Bidders: Five large but unidentified fiber-optic carriers have submitted confidential bids and are in price negotiations with the consortium. Cost: The four colleges had anticipated spending a total of $2-million on local-circuit charges over the next five years. Campus information-technology officials think that the fiber-ring project will pay for itself in about the same time, while expanding their network capacity. By how much, they do not know. "We haven't settled on how many fiber strands we will own," says Ms. Alvarez. What industry analysts say: Now is a good time to be buying fiber, says Sterling Perrin, a research analyst for IDC, a technology-research company in Framingham, Mass. Prices for fiber-optic cable have fallen "50 percent-plus every year" for the last couple of years, he says, but in some rural areas there will be no fiber available. "Colleges that get cheap deals on fiber still face the challenge and expense of acquiring and managing their own optical-network equipment," Mr. Perrin says, "and when you're talking about optical speeds and optical equipment, it's very, very complex stuff." UMass officials say they have network engineers on staff who can work with such equipment.

Last Updated ( Sunday, 08 March 2009 )