BCNETwork News

October 2006

Bolstering British Columbia's Capabilities

CANARIE and BCNET are acquiring new fibre networks in British Columbia that will bring greater bandwidth and capacity to big science projects and improve collaboration with scientists in the United States, Europe and Asia. Entitled the Western ROADM (Reconfigurable, Optical Add-Drop Multiplexer) Project, this plan will build an optical network that will reach across Canada and areas in the US.

BCNET and CANARIE Partnering to Develop ROADM

BCNET and CANARIE will jointly develop the ROADM networks in British Columbia, a shared optical network connecting Kelowna, Kamloops, Vancouver, Victoria and Seattle. Both parties will acquire fibre between Calgary-Vancouver-Seattle that can be interconnected to the existing optical networks deployed by CANARIE, BCNET and Pacific Northwest Gigapop (PNWGP).

Super-Charged Capacity

This multi-channel network will allow numerous wavelengths to be operated independently, providing extremely high bandwidth. The initial implementation has the aggregated power and capacity of nearly one terabit, the equivalent to 1000 gigabits. As a measure of comparison, the US Library of Congress, one of the largest libraries in the world, contains approximately 20 terabytes of text data.

Realizing New Capabilities

With ROADM, BCNET will realize new capabilities to meet the growing demand amongst BC’s science community for greater bandwidth. Researchers will be able to provision one of 72 one-gigabit dedicated wavelengths for big science projects -- providing unfettered network capacity.

Timelines for Implementation

BCNET has received the project plans and timetables for the Western ROADM Project and implementation is scheduled to be completed by March 2007.