Level 3’s fiber network transport network consists of 42,000 route miles branching like tendrils through rural communities throughout the country. The problem is that fiber is just passing through on its way to some metro gateway. The thousands of tiny communities on Level 3’s rights-of-way have no access to it, until now. Under a deal with rural WiMAX provider Open Range Communications, Level 3 is cracking open its transport network in 500 small communities throughout the US, unleashing hitherto unheard of amounts of capacity to areas that traditionally have trouble getting DSL lines.
To accomplish this, Level 3 is turning to its in-line amplifiers, optical signal regenerators that lie every 60 miles on its fiber routes. Those amplifiers usually aren’t points-of-presence in their own right, but Level 3 is augmenting many of these sites with access equipment, which, in turn, is linked to nearby Open Range facilities. From there, the capacity can be distributed via wireless backhaul to clusters of WiMAX base stations serving a local community.
Level 3 has tapped into its amplifiers before, usually on a case by case basis for a specific customer, but this is the first time it has launched a large scale project to use the amps as staging zones for broadband transport, said Jennifer Artley, vice president of carrier offer management. Level 3 also isn’t doing this network wide. Its metro gateways will still be the primary way its customers access its networks. “Our focus right now is rural communities,” Artley said. “Level 3 was looking for a cost-effective way to improve access to them.”
The project will encompass about 500 communities, each with about 8000 people or less, in 17 states that make up Open Range’s footprint. But it plans to offer the service to other rural providers, including cable operators, RLECs and wireless carriers.
