Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

What is FiberCo™?
Internet2 has established the National Research and Education Fiber Company (FiberCo) to support regional fiber optical networking initiatives dedicated to research and higher education.

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What are the objectives of FiberCo?
The concept behind FiberCo is to help provide inter-city dark fiber to regional optical networks with the benefit of a national-scale contract and aggregate price levels. The responsibility for actually lighting this fiber will rest with the regional networks

A secondary objective is to insure that the U.S. research university collective maintains access to a strategic fiber acquisition capability on the national scale for future initiatives. Our sense is that the fiber market is tightening up as the telecom survivors have been buying up the loose fiber assets.

How is FiberCo operated and funded?
FiberCo is a limited liability corporation (LLC) founded by Internet2, which is the initial member of the LLC, and with membership open to other non-profit organizations engaged in advanced networking development for the U.S. research university community.

Who are the leaders for this project?
Steve Cotter, Director, provides oversite of FiberCo and Ana Preston, Internet2 Engineer is the Technical Director. Heather Bruning is responsible for the FiberCo business relationships.

What is Level 3’s involvement in FiberCo ?
Initially, FiberCo has the ability to work off the original Level 3 national footprint. FiberCo intends to assign the fiber contracts for desired segments to the individual regional networks and universities. There will be a transaction fee designed to recover FiberCo 's costs.

FiberCo has executed two agreements with Level 3 Communications that 1) provide it with an initial allocation of over 2,600 route-mi of dark fiber anywhere on Level 3's national footprint and 2) set the ongoing costs for fiber maintenance and equipment co-location.

Why did you choose to partner with Level 3?
We were drawn to the Level 3 facility because of its homogeneous national fiber plant and because of the company's aggressively open fiber interconnection policy with other entities. In addition, we have the ability to acquire additional fiber strands at the same price levels over the next three years. We intend to make segments of this fiber available (by means of contract assignment) to those regional optical networks serving higher education.

Does FiberCo have the capability to provision fiber anywhere on the original Level 3 build?
FiberCo has the capability to provision fiber anywhere on the original Level 3 build at favorable pricing over the next three years. We have established a national-scale contract with a minimum commitment of 2,600 miles that we intend to specify by early Fall 2003. We expect to put roughly half of this initial allocation into the NLR initiative and the rest into regional optical networks. We then have the capability to acquire additional fiber segments at the same pricing through 2005. We expect that most participating regional's and universities will want FiberCo to assign the fiber IRU and O&M contracts to them so that they then can take full ownership of the asset. In this model, there would be a reasonable transaction fee to cover FiberCo's™ costs.

How does FiberCo relate to the recently announced NLR initiative?
Internet2 is working to become a founding participant in NLR. We are positioning FiberCo as a complementary, supporting project to help jump start regional optical networking initiatives. FiberCo is designed as a fiber holding and assignment vehicle; it will not light the fiber as NLR and the regional initiatives will.

How does FiberCo relate to the Abilene Network?
Regional and optical networks are expected to offer high performance connections to higher education and research organizations. FiberCo can play a complimentary role. Regional networks can help provide connections to Abilene and the Internet2 member universities that are served.

Where can I find a route map of the available fiber?
Please email fiberco@internet2.edu for the route map.

How does my organization purchase dark fiber through FiberCo ?
Please email fiberco@internet2.edu for pricing information.