Dark Fiber - The Future of the Illinois Century Network

January 2009

The Illinois Century Network, referred to as the ICN, is the state’s communication backbone, providing high speed bandwidth to Illinois schools, colleges, universities, community colleges, libraries, museums, hospitals, state agencies, local government, and other public entities. Established in 1999, the network has doubled in size, making it the largest public Information Technology network in the nation.

Over the last five years, the Department of Central Management Services has:

  • Upgraded the ICN while continuing toprovide advanced services, deliveraccess to the resource-rich Internet2network – and maintain 99%+ reliability.
  • Migrated State Agency data trafficonto the network, saving the State anestimated $7 million per year andleading to a Computerworld HonorsLaureate medal.

and

  • More than doubled the amount of bandwidth allocated to educational constituents as well as decrease bandwidth costs for other constituents by more than 30%.

As a result, the ICN now provides higherspeeds, more bandwidth and lower coststo over 8,000 schools, colleges, universities, community colleges, libraries, museums, hospitals, and other institutions statewide –and, consequently, the estimated 2 millioncitizens who use it.

With network utilization growing at a rate of 8% per month, CMS believes that one of the most critical needs is to migrate the backbone from leased line circuits to State-owned fiber. State-owned fiber is a more economical means to provide dramatic increases in bandwidth at a lower cost. CMS estimates that dark fiber will provide 10 times the amount of bandwidth at about the same operating cost.

CMS is currently working with the Department of Transportation, the Illinois Toll Highway Authority, Chicago Transit Authority and other public entities to connect existing public-owned fiber. CMS anticipates that the first fiber connection between Collinsville, Springfield, Peoria and Chicago could be operational in fiscal year 2010 with an alternate ring from Chicago, Champaign, and Springfield operational at the end of fiscal year 2011.

The migration to a state-owned fiber network will require a capital investment to secure the equipment and fiber infrastructure. CMS estimates the infrastructure costs to be $15M. The projected Return on Investment is four years.

The benefits of the fiber network are many. The fiber network will expand current possibilities by supporting next generation applications within education, government, health care, homeland security, and emergency response. Some of the possibilities include:

  • Expanding telemedicine applications to more hospitals and health care providers
  • Increasing the State’s ability for real-time video monitoring of critical infrastructure such as bridges, roads and nuclear power plants
  • Enriching educational curriculum with real-time multi-media streams from the space station or under the ocean
  • Providing university researchers with access to remote scientific instruments and super computers located in special facilities within Illinois and the world (e.g. high energy physics computational processors, astronomy facilities, virtual reality labs

On behalf of the more than 8,000 constituents utilizing the Illinois Century Network each and every day, Central Management Services, the Illinois Century Network Policy Committee, and the Illinois Century Network Advanced Engineering Task Force request your support to build the next century network.

Please director questions to Matthew Hammoudeh, CMS Senior Policy Advisor, 312-814-2141.