CENIC News

The Federal Communications commission has recently made two announcements of great interest to CENIC and the communities we serve, and in this month's CENIC Today, I'd like to introduce you to these announcements and comment on their relevance to CENIC and California research and education.

The first announcement has to do with what are referred to as "white spaces," heretofore unused frequency gaps in the relatively low-frequency television spectrum. On September 23, the FCC took steps to free up these gaps for unlicensed use. This is correctly being touted as a major step forward for communications innovation, since these areas of the broadcast spectrum travel particularly well over large distances and through walls and other obstacles, even allowing a single access point to provide wireless broadband services within a 50 mile radius. Its penetration and range also enable new opportunities for mobile broadband.

I am optimistic about this new development and what it can mean to extend the reach of networks like CalREN, as well as increasing the potential for innovation from within the very communities that stand to benefit from this decision. However, it should be a cautious optimism; other technologies that have promised to revolutionize broadband penetration have sometimes delivered less than expectations might have assumed. Nevertheless, this is a welcome decision by the FCC both to spur innovation and broadband penetration, and to help "take the load off" of the current generation of wireless networks. The CENIC Board is beginning to look into how to consider the opportunities afforded by the availability of this new spectrum.

The second announcement which I would like to discuss is the modification to the FCC's E-rate program, originally established to help bring connectivity to all schools and libraries across the US. By all measures, the program has been a stunning success, with 97% of all schools and libraries able to offer basic Internet access to their communities. However, schools and libraries will benefit even more from the FCC decision, also on September 23, to update the E-rate program to meet the changing technological and economic climate. This decision encompasses several changes to the program, but I'd like to focus on three specifically.

Perhaps the most important part of the FCC's decision from CENIC's point of view is the new rules that will enable schools and libraries to use E-rate funds to acquire network "dark fiber" as well as "lit services" from nonprofit research and education networks like CalREN, from local governments, and from designated commercial providers. As I stated in the June 1 issue of CENIC Today, in light of continuing budget constraints in California, this new flexibility could greatly assist K-12 in maintaining sufficient funding to retain services provided by CENIC, so this is excellent news for California.

Two other parts of this announcement should also be mentioned. The first is the decision to include in E-rate what the FCC is calling "School Spots," where schools have the option to provide Internet access to their local communities after students go home. The second is being called "Learning on the Go," which focuses on mobile learning devices. Taken together with the new options for schools and libraries to obtain fiber-based connectivity, these aspects to the FCC's revamping of the E-rate program show great promise for students in all areas of California.

The possibilities that both of these decisions create for un- and underserved rural communities are also clear, as are the possibilities for regional networks like CENIC that serve a diverse community with a very large rural component. With these changes to the E-rate program and the opening up of the "white spaces" of the low-frequency spectrum to unlicensed use, schools and libraries can function even more powerfully and with far greater flexibility than before as anchor institutions for the people they serve.

I look forward to seeing the ways in which these decisions can be leveraged to improve connectivity for the ten million Californians that CENIC serves, and I will be sure to keep readers of CENIC Today up to date on further developments.

During the month of September, CENIC has continued with its systematic consolidation of OCNs throughout the CalREN network, as well as migrating the DS3 and OC3 SONET circuits to point-to-point circuits. However, we did put a new Gigabit connection into production between the San Joaquin and Stanislaus County Offices of Education node sites as part of a scheduled ring redesign.

CENIC also completed a new Gigabit connection to CalREN for the Humboldt County Office of Education in Eureka, a significant achievement given the relative scarcity of telco and fiber infrastructure in that region.

The Corporation for Education Network Initiatives in California (CENIC) will hold its 15th annual conference, Expanding our Horizons,
March 7-9, 2011, at the UC Irvine Student Center, in Irvine, CA.

The CENIC 2011 Program Committee is seeking proposals for presentations, demonstrations, and panel discussions focused on network-enabled applications and research. Proposals may be submitted via e-mail to cenic11-proposals@cenic.org. Proposals should be no longer than three pages and should be submitted in MS Word, PDF, or plain text format. The deadline for proposals is November 5, 2010.

Presentations typically fall into one of the following categories: technology/infrastructure, teaching and learning, application development and use, trends/future developments in network technology and related applications. Presentations focused on research, teaching and learning activities involving multiple segments of the K-20 community, and/or international collaborations are especially encouraged. Projects or studies to be featured may be works-in-progress. The conference venue will be connected to CalREN, NLR and Internet2 to enable live demonstrations of content or capability.

We are especially interested in presentations about projects and initiatives that benefit from access to broadband networks and/or incorporate use of network technologies. The 2010 conference program provides examples of the types of presentations we are seeking and can be viewed at cenic2010.cenic.org/program/.

Please include the following information in your proposal:

• Name, title and contact information of submitter (e-mail and telephone number please)
• The title of your presentation
• A brief abstract of the proposed presentation topic
• The presentation type (i.e. presentation, demonstration or panel discussion)
• A short biography of all presenters
• An estimate of the time required for your presentation (keep in mind most slots are no more than 20 minutes)
• Any presentation requirements (i.e. special equipment required, particular network requirements)

The program committee will review proposals, and presenters will be notified of acceptance by December 10, 2010. Final presentation slides are due by March 4, 2011.

General conference registration will open on November 8, 2010. General questions about the program or proposals may be addressed to CENIC via e-mail to cenic11-info@cenic.org.

Each year CENIC seeks to discover and recognize exemplary innovations that leverage the California Research and Education Network (CalREN) and have the potential to improve the way instruction and research is conducted. We are calling for nominations of applications and projects which represent innovative uses of the network. Awards will be presented in the following four categories:

• Education Applications
• High Performance Research Applications
• Experimental/Developmental Applications
• Gigabit/Broadband Applications

CENIC encourages applications and projects focused on research, teaching and learning activities involving collaboration across multiple segments of the K-20 community, and/or international collaborations that have been developed within 2009-2010. An Award committee will review the nominations and determine the award winners on the basis of submitted materials, and additional interviews as necessary.

CENIC will present these awards at the 15th annual CENIC conference, Expanding our Horizons, March 7-9, 2011, at the UC Irvine Student Center, in Irvine, CA. Award winners will be notified in advance of the conference and will be asked to give presentations on their award-winning work during a special session at the conference.

Nomination Procedures

The deadline for submission of nominations is November 19, 2010, by 5:00 pm. Nominations may be submitted via e-mail to cenic11-proposals@cenic.org with the subject line "Innovations in Networking Award Nomination". Submissions may be made by the individual(s) who worked on the project, or by others, and should include:

• Name, title, and contact information of submitter
• Award Category
• Names of project/application leader(s) and team members
• A summary paragraph that highlights the significance of the project (100 words)
• A project description (not to exceed 5 pages), including the project URLs
• The technology/technologies utilized in the project
• The time frame of implementation
• Objective summary of benefits attributed to the project (not to exceed 2 pages)

General questions may be addressed to Doug Hartline, Conference Chair, at cenic11-info@cenic.org.

The HPR or High-Performance Research tier of CalREN serves the needs of researchers in data-intensive sciences such as astronomy, deep ocean study, bioinformatics, and grid computing. These applications often have much broader requirements in terms of bandwidth and latency than the more day-to-day uses that CalREN also supports, and may require more flexibility as well. CalREN-HPR has been designed specifically with their needs in mind and must be kept technologically current in order to enable this type of highly demanding research.

To that end, the CalREN-HPR Refresh was undertaken to provide additional services to participating Associates who use this network tier and, like the already completed refresh of the CalREN-DC network tier, to "future-proof" the network. We're pleased to announce that this Refresh project has been completed.

The CalREN-HPR Refresh was comprised of two parts: a refresh of the existing Layer 3 (routed) network and the addition of Layer 2 10-Gigabit Ethernet switching services. Both the Layer 3 and Layer 2 Refreshes have been completed.

Readers will find other backbone-focused projects listed at the CENIC website. Among those projects is the Coachella Valley Route Upgrade, which will upgrade the network which extends from San Diego to Riverside through El Centro, Yuma, and Palm Desert, to provide 10GE connectivity throughout that region. In addition, this project will create a second regional aggregation point in the San Diego metropolitan area, which will allow sites in that area to connect to diverse hubsites cost-effectively. Completion is expected during 2010.

New Projects and developments and completion of existing ones will be reported on in future issues of CENIC Today.

Thanks to current advanced networks like CalREN, based on fiber optics, the use of light to send information from one place to another quickly and with enormous bandwidth has become if not commonplace then at least expected in the arenas of high-tech research and education.

However, while the speed and bandwidth advantages of light-based communications have propagated through the data pipes connecting computational centers routinely, the computations themselves are still taking place using not photons of light, but electrons in more conventional processing structures. The light pulses that comprise, for example, astronomical data sent from a telescope at the summit of Mauna Kea in Hawaii to a researcher on the mainland must be converted back to electronic signals before any processing can be performed on them. Electronics are commonplace, and a fully mature technology; however, they are beginning to reach their technological limits. As chips become more and more finely detailed with more processing structures packed per square centimeter than ever before, inevitable quantum effects are beginning to interfere with their reliability, to say nothing of the increasingly sobering cooling requirements of these devices.

An ideal solution would of course be to preserve the light-based nature of the transmitted data and carry out computations upon it in that form. This is however, easier said than done since the light must be "slowed down" from its standard speed of 3 x 10⁸ m/s in order to make it amenable to computation. The creation of a data processing device that can act upon light-based "photonic" data would enable a light-based network from end to end, even replacing the current generation of switches and routers at the heart of networks like CalREN. In a boost for green sensibilities, such devices would even operate at room temperature. Removing the power requirements for cooling from consideration would allow far more computational power to reside in a single equipment rack, as opposed to the current situation facing network engineers where a large portion of the power supplied by a given rack must be siphoned off for cooling purposes.

The Applied Optics Group at UC Santa Cruz, under the direction of Baskin School of engineering Professor Holger Schmidt, is pursuing this grail of computer engineering by creating silicon chips which can slow light significantly (a factor of 1200). Built using standard manufacturing techniques, the chip uses optical waveguides filled with rubidium vapor, the behavior of which can be guided via a control laser. "Normally, the rubidium vapor absorbs the light from the signal laser, so nothing gets through. Then you turn on the control laser and boom, the material becomes transparent and the signal pulse not only makes it through, but it also moves significantly more slowly," Schmidt said.

"This has implications for looking at nonlinear optical effects beyond slow light," Schmidt said. "We can potentially use this to create all-optical switches, single-photon detectors, quantum memory devices, and other exciting possibilities." While this research does not currently take place over CalREN, it promises a transformation of the ways in which advanced fiber-based networks like CalREN operate, perhaps even creating computational platforms built into the very fabric of the network.

To learn more about the other Star Performers that CENIC has featured, please visit our website at www.cenic.org.

In last month's issue of CENIC Today, readers were introduced to the Central Valley Next Generation Broadband Infrastructure Project, a $66.6 million project partly funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act which involves building, operating, and maintaining a fiber-optic network infrastructure that will traverse 1,371 miles of California's Central Valley in addition to last-mile wireless capability over parts of four counties (Fresno, Kern, Kings, and Tulare).

In an effort to ensure that involved institutions are kept informed of project status and future planning and given the opportunity to contribute their own expertise, a series of meetings were held in three locations in the Central Valley -- Visalia, Stockton, and Marysville. Representatives from involved institutions were introduced to the project staffing and general timelines, and the technical plan by which the CVNGBIP will be implemented.

Included in the presentations were 49 area- and city-specific project maps which can be found on the CVNGBIP website, along with the accompanying presentations in PDF format and Google Earth kmz files marking the location of the institutions to be served. Interested parties are invited to visit the CVNGBIP website to take a look at this information, and also to learn more about the Project in general.

US & World Networking News:

EDUCAUSE, Internet2, National LambdaRail and The Quilt join research and education networking organizations across the U.S. in commending the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) decision to expand broadband options for schools and libraries under E-rate rules.

Under the new rules, announced today, these institutions will now be able to use E-rate funds to acquire network dark fiber as well as lit services from nonprofit research and education (R&E) networks and local governments as well as designated commercial providers.

NASA has started to conduct end-to-end throughput performance benchmarking as part of its High-End Computing 20, 40, and 100 Gbps Network Testbed initiative over a 4x10 Gigabit Ethernet (GE) infrastructure between Chicago and McLean, VA, deployed by National LambdaRail.

Over the past two years, more than half of the 23 campuses in the California State University system have migrated their students to Google Apps for Education. And in the coming months, other campuses will join them.

As of July 2010, development is underway on the next generation of online student application to the California Community Colleges (CCC) with a goal of delivering a new system by summer 2012.

The CCC Technology Center at Butte College is leading the project with input from the OpenCCCApply Steering Committee and funding from the CCC Chancellor's Office. The completed project will be hosted and supported by the CCC Technology Center, and it will provide a new CCC-owned application service for the colleges.

California education leaders are determining how to use digital content to help students learn, both at the K-12 and the university level. In 32 courses this fall, five campuses in the California State University (CSU) system started a digital content licensing pilot that takes the place of textbooks. And in four school districts, a pilot program replaced the algebra textbooks of 400 eighth-graders with iPads containing Algebra I applications.

The 33-month, $110 million project begun in December 2007 was completed in September of 2010, linking five islands in French Polynesia (Bora Bora, Raiatea, Huahine, Moorea, and Tahiti) with one another and Hawaii. Teva Rohfritsch, Minister of Economic Restructuring, in charge of the digital economy, said the completion is a great step forward for Tahitian Internet users. HONOTUA is a 3,107-mile (5,000-km) submarine fiber optic cable running between French Polynesia with Hawaii. The cable's furthest depth below sea level is 19,500 feet (5,944 meters).

More information about HONOTUA can be found here (in French).

About CENIC and How to Change Your Subscription:

California's education and research communities leverage their networking resources under CENIC, the Corporation for Education Network Initiatives in California, in order to obtain cost-effective, high-bandwidth networking to support their missions and answer the needs of their faculty, staff, and students. CENIC designs, implements, and operates CalREN, the California Research and Education Network, a high-bandwidth, high-capacity Internet network specially designed to meet the unique requirements of these communities, and to which the vast majority of the state's K-20 educational institutions are connected. In order to facilitate collaboration in education and research, CENIC also provides connectivity to non-California institutions and industry research organizations with which CENIC's Associate researchers and educators are engaged.

CENIC is governed by its member institutions. Representatives from these institutions also donate expertise through their participation in various committees designed to ensure that CENIC is managed effectively and efficiently, and to support the continued evolution of the network as technology advances.

For more information, visit www.cenic.org.

Subscription Information: You can subscribe and unsubscribe to CENIC Today at http://lists.cenic.org/mailman/listinfo/cenic-today.