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CenturyLink Providing DoD's Equivalent of Internet2
Nerval's Lobster writes "Network provider CenturyLink has won a $750 million contract from the Department of Defense to network the latter's sites together as part of the military equivalent of Internet2. The contract calls for CenturyLink to connect as many as 150 DoD locations nationwide with a dedicated high-speed fiber-optic network, with speeds ranging from 50 Mbits/s to up to 100 Gbits/sec. Given that the contract also calls for the telco to deploy Ethernet, IP and optical services, it's likely that the 50-Mbits/s threshold is a per-user basis, with site-to-site communications in the gigabit range. It's all part of the U.S. Department of Defense's High Performance Computing Modernization Program (DoD HPCMP), which aims to solve complicated and time-consuming problems with massively-parallel computing and very high-speed networking. The HPCMP program was formed in 1992, with the aim of connecting what had been separate facilities and test labs developed and maintained by the Army, Navy, and Air Force. That network is known as the Defense Research and Engineering Network (DREN) network, which currently uses an OC-48 optical network providing 2.4 Gbit/s between facilities, according to the military."
2.4Gbit/sec used to be a big deal, now it is not
The backbones are all 100+Gbit/sec (often 10x10Gbit/sec or multiple 40Gbit/sec interfaces)
My business routinely moves 20-30Gbit/sec of data around the internet (video streaming) and during large events, we can do 100Gbit/sec for a few hours.
And all I get is 1.5mbps DSL because they are still using ancient copper out in my neck of the woods. C'mon... PLEASE.
There's nothing wrong with copper or its age. You're too far from the CO.
If competitive carriers like CenturyLink had access to facilities that THE PUBLIC PAID FOR that now belong to Verizon et. al. they could put gear in the patch cabinets much closer to their subscribers (this is known as FTTC). In the UK there are several carriers using VDSL2 technology to provide 80mbps down/20mbps up service over "ancient copper" for a little more than the price of a normal DSL line, because their gear is only 300m from the subscriber in the neighborhood patch cabinet.
But the US Congress repealed the legislation requiring incumbents to allow acces to their facilities in 2005, so the end result is that the broadband situation in the US for most folks is:
- Incumbent DSL that isn't faster than it was 10 years ago
- Cable
- If you're very lucky, fibre