Univerity of Illinois Launches Adva Network

The University of Illinois has launched a 3000RE fiber service platform (FSP) from Adva Optical Networking to expand its intercampus data network and those of its main campuses in Chicago, Springfield and Urbana-Champaign. The university migrated from a dedicated point-to-point OC-3 circuit that connected the Urbana and Chicago campuses with a capacity of 155 Mb/s to a dedicated dense wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM) backbone able to transport up to 3.2 Tb/s, achieved with 10 Gb/s per channel -- with the potential for 40 Gb/s per channel in the future, Adva said. The network extends a total distance of almost 1000 km. The university said the increased bandwidth will enable closer integration of campuses; improved networking for education and course management using higher-bandwidth applications; enhanced support of research projects that rely on access to large amounts of data or computational processing facilities; and reliable high-speed connectivity to the national and internal research and education community via academic networks such as Internet2 and National LambdaRail.