Incoming infrastructure: Charles Catlett is project director for I-Wire, an ultra-high-capacity fiber optic network now being developed.
December 10, 2001
By Paul Merrion
Chicago is getting a potent new weapon in its high-tech arsenal.
A group of Chicago-area research institutions — plus the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign — is creating an ultra-high-capacity fiber optic network that will make this region the undisputed center of research involving supercomputers and the next-generation Internet.
"We're struggling in California to catch up," said Larry Smarr, director of the California Institute of Telecommunications and Information Technology (Cal-IT2). "I gave a speech here the other day and asked, 'What are we doing by letting Illinois run away with this?' "
Led by Argonne National Laboratory, the Illinois Wired/Wireless Infrastructure for Research and Education (I-Wire) will create a state-of-the-art data link between Argonne, the U of I's National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA), Northwestern University, the University of Chicago, the University of Illinois at Chicago and the Illinois Institute of Technology.
Funded by a $7.5-million grant over five years from the state of Illinois, I-Wire will start early next year with a capacity of 40 gigabits per second (Gbps), providing a handful of researchers with the kind of bandwidth that a long-distance telephone company might use to carry more than 2 million simultaneous conversations across the country.
Essentially, I-Wire will create a virtual research lab, enabling scientists in widely scattered locations to consult with one another in real time to pursue new ideas — or new sources of federal research dollars.
It's already helped Argonne and NCSA play an integral role in the National Science Foundation's Distributed Terascale Facility, a $53-million program linking supercomputer centers in Illinois and California to build the world's most advanced supercomputer for scientific research and collaboration.
"We won it because we had I-Wire," said Rick Stevens, director of math and computer science at Argonne.
I-Wire's potential to bring federal and private research dollars into Illinois, and to spin off commercial ideas and benefits, has made it a long-running top priority for Gov. George Ryan and the Illinois Coalition, a public-private group that promotes the state's high-tech economy.
Initially, I-Wire will use four channels at 10 Gbps each, but the plan is to keep adding more channels or, more likely, increase each channel to 40 Gbps.
That kind of 40-Gbps fiber optic circuit, known as an OC-768, depends on the most advanced available lasers and electronics that split a beam of light into dozens of colors, each one capable of carrying a huge data stream.
"All of this is happening now, but it's extremely expensive," said Steven Rago, principal analyst at Isuppli Corp., an electronics market consulting firm based in El Segundo, Calif. "The Holy Grail is OC-768."
Typically, only the highest-end corporate networks or major portions of the Internet backbone operate at speeds as fast as 10 Gbps, and most are at 1 Gbps or much less. For instance, Qwest Communications International Inc.'s Abilene network, a high-speed backbone that connects major academic research networks, is currently upgrading its circuits to 10 Gbps from 2.5.
A gigabit is 1 billion bits of information, which means one gigabit per second is roughly 20,000 times faster than a dial-up modem connection.
Or, to put it another way: Argonne has calculated that a 40-gigabit network could transmit the entire contents of the World Wide Web in less than half an hour.
And that's just for starters. I-Wire is designed to be upgraded quickly and inexpensively to 160 Gbps, eventually reaching the terabit level — 1 trillion bits of information per second — or even more, taking it far beyond the limits of today's optical networking technology.
"In practical terms, it's unlimited," said Charles Catlett, I-Wire project director and a senior fellow at Argonne.
Adding a lot more lanes to the information superhighway might seem to be a dubious goal in the aftermath of the tech boom and with weak demand for conventional fiber optic networks and digital subscriber lines (DSL) into homes. But the need for more bandwidth is already there for some kinds of scientific research, and eliminating constraints will spark new ideas in video, engineering design and other data-intensive technologies, such as computer-aided visualization and simulation.
"We're already talking to our industrial partners about opportunities with I-Wire," said Daniel Reed, director of NCSA, which works closely with Boeing Co., Motorola Inc., Allstate Corp. and other leading Illinois firms involved in supercomputer research.
Whenever networks are upgraded, Mr. Reed added, "the first reaction is: 'How will we ever use that much bandwidth?' A year later, it's: 'How did we ever live without it?' "
Going to the 'dark' side
But aside from the potential for scientific and commercial breakthroughs, the economics of the I-Wire project will make it something to watch.
Instead of using a telecommunications firm to provide the network service, I-Wire will purchase optical networking equipment and obtain a 20-year lease on unused, "dark" fiber that several vendors already have in the ground, creating a do-it-yourself network at a fraction of what it would otherwise cost.
It's like the difference between buying and renting a home, but in this case, the total cost of moving up to a brand-new, four-bedroom house is less than two months' rent on a one-bedroom apartment.
Major telecommunications providers such as Ameritech, a unit of San Antonio-based SBC Communications Inc., and MCI Group, a unit of Mississippi-based WorldCom Inc., didn't even bid after I-Wire decided to obtain dark fiber to create its own network infrastructure.
"The economics don't justify our involvement," said Michael Neel, sales director for government and education accounts in Ameritech's Springfield office. "We prefer to deliver an end-to-end service. The more partners, the more complex it becomes."
Said Brian Jacobs, a major account executive for MCI in Chicago: "We got out of the dark fiber game long ago. That's just not our business model."
Nexus in Chicago
I-Wire is obtaining dark fiber in the Chicago area from Level 3 Communications Inc., based in Broomfield, Colo., and Denver-based Qwest. In addition, McLeodUSA Inc., based in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, is providing the fiber link from Chicago to Champaign. Several local construction firms will install new fiber to bridge the gap from I-Wire's dark fiber to IIT and UIC. Equipment vendors will be chosen this month.
"We are committed to continuing our deep relationship with the research marketplace," said Wesley Kaplow, chief technology officer for Qwest's government division, which also provides the Abilene network, a Pentagon-funded research network and the 40-Gbps connection between Chicago and California for the Tera-scale project. "This gives us an entree, different ways of talking to government customers and policymakers. Otherwise, we become like everybody else."
I-Wire also will connect directly to Starlight, a federally funded fiber optic network access point now in development to link US researchers to international research networks. Located on Northwestern's Evanston campus, Starlight is another major element in Chicago's growing status as the center of next-generation Internet research.
I-Wire, the Terascale project and Starlight add up to a huge amount of research activity, and "all three intersect in Chicago," said Mr. Smarr, who founded and headed NCSA for many years before moving to California last year. He noted that Internet traffic, which exceeded voice traffic for the first time last year, is expected to account for 99% of all telecommunications by 2005.
"I don't know if Chicago understands this. We are going to completely and radically change the architecture of the telecom system," he said. "That's why this testbed is so important."
Chicago's critical mass creates another way in which I-Wire makes network connectivity more affordable. I-Wire will provide the Abilene network with a high-speed connection to Starlight. In return, participating universities will connect to Abilene for the price of one connection, saving them hundreds of thousands of dollars, according to Mr. Catlett, I-Wire's project director.
It's impossible to predict what will result from I-Wire, but eliminating the constraint of network transmission speed will undoubtedly lead to huge advances in data-intensive fields such as biotechnology, medical imaging, energy exploration, weather forecasting, nanotechnology and high-energy physics.
That research will lead to commercial products and services, but perhaps the biggest near-term implication for business is the potential to develop software that facilitates long-distance collaboration on large sets of data, including engineering designs, architectural drawings and information such as insurance and medical records.
"It gives you the ability to collaborate with others on the same data set," said David Channin, chief of imaging informatics in the radiology department at Northwestern University Medical School.
Inside Northwestern Memorial Hospital, where Dr. Channin is director of the picture archiving and communications system, doctors rely almost totally on digital images of CAT scans and X-rays, printing to film or paper only 5% of the time.
Collaborative tool
While it's feasible to create an in-house network with sufficient capacity to share and manipulate images — the hospital's central network operates at 622 megabits per second (Mbps) — moving large amounts of data to remote locations, either for consultation or off-site storage, is currently impractical. (A megabit equals 1 million bits of information.)
"You need real-time interaction," said Dr. Channin. "You can't build these collaboration tools until you have the big pipes."
The big hurdle is the cost, which is largely a function of speed and distance. Any number of telecommunications firms can install a fiber optic circuit known as an OC-12, which runs at 622 Mbps or even higher. But the cost will be prohibitive for all but the heaviest users, such as an Internet service provider.
Already, the Illinois Century Network (ICN) — a state agency that provides Internet connections and data services for about 5,600 other state agencies, schools, museums and hospitals — is planning to use part of the I-Wire network and state-owned dark fiber to run its own network as well.
Currently, ICN is paying $1.2 million a year for a fiber optic connection between Chicago and Champaign, operating at 622 Mbps. Using a small portion of I-Wire's bandwidth, the state-run network can obtain a 2.5-Gbps circuit over the same route for $100,000 in upfront equipment costs and annual maintenance expenses of $50,000 to $75,000, according to ICN Director Neil Matkin.
"They are stunningly low numbers," said Mr. Catlett. "It's something that threatens the established phone companies."
In other words, by linking up with I-Wire, the state breaks even in less than two months for a circuit that's four times faster.
"This is an incredible opportunity," said Mr. Matkin.
The savings are even greater — and the break-even point comes even sooner — when compared with the usual cost for the upgraded circuit ICN will be using.
A sales proposition
Last year, when MCI Group first looked at the project — before I-Wire decided to obtain dark fiber — its bid to provide 2.5-Gbps network service from Champaign to Downers Grove would have been $360,000 a month, according to MCI's Mr. Jacobs.
"We basically went in from a strict sales perspective," he said. MCI has its own research lab and didn't see enough internal benefits to justify leasing some of its dark fiber to I-Wire.
But, he added, "God, I thought it was cool."
©2001 by Crain Communications Inc.