The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) of 2009 funds programs to expand broadband access to unserved and underserved communities across the U.S. These communities are typically located in rural areas where the high cost to deliver broadband services to a small number of geographically dispersed customers has prohibited the build-out of broadband infrastructure. Not only do many of these communities lack last-mile access networks to deliver services to homes and businesses, but many of these communities also lack connections to the core broadband infrastructure serving the rest of the U.S. To address this, ARRA is funding middle-mile infrastructure programs to bring broadband services to these communities and funding last-mile broadband access programs to deliver these services to individual homes, businesses, community colleges, hospitals, public safety entities, and other community anchor institutions.

A typical rural broadband service delivery network is shown in Figure 1, below. Last mile access is typically accomplished with a traditional CATV network (HFC) or Telco copper network (DSL), but fiber (fiber to the curb or home, or FTTx) is playing an increasingly important role here, as well. Middle mile networks, because of add/drop and bandwidth requirements, are typically implemented using DWDM optical transport with optical add/drop multiplexers (OADMs) at the interconnect points. The middle mile network is in turn connected to the core broadband infrastructure at a long-haul point-of-presence (PoP). Smaller middle mile networks may also be subtended directly from the core long-haul network.

Middle mile networks, which are highlighted above in Figure 1, provide optical transport to connect multiple rural communities to the core broadband Internet infrastructure. These networks must support wholesale and retail service offerings, provide choices in services and service providers, and offer flexible options in bandwidth and transport protocols. To meet other ARRA objectives, these networks must also be technically feasible, turned up in a timely manner, and financially sustainable. To help meet all of the ARRA objectives and be awarded funding, middle mile networks must offer the following:

• Low-cost transport requiring a minimum of CapEx, both for initial deployment and growth
• Network intelligence that automates network turn-up, service activation, and network migration processes, thus lowering the total cost of ownership (TCO) of the network over its entire life
• Operational efficiencies which lower OpEx costs while accelerating network and service turn-up
• Flexible architecture options which meet today’s needs yet enable optimized future growth
• The ability to deliver multiple services with flexible bandwidth and protocol options
• Network simplicity, which reduces training requirements and the number of trained engineering personnel required to maintain and operate the network
• High reliability and availability, which not only means fewer service outages, but lower operational costs, as well

Infinera, as a global provider of optical network equipment, offers two widely deployed solutions to meet middle mile network requirements: the Infinera DTN digital ROADM and the ATN OADM. Delivering true bandwidth management and an automated digital optical network, the DTN is perfectly suited for middle mile applications where higher bandwidth, longer distance, or larger middle mile networks are required. For middle mile applications where lower bandwidth, shorter distance, and first-in costs are dominant requirements, the ATN provides an optimized middle mile solution. And, of course, DTN/ATN end-to-end integrated middle mile networks may be deployed which optimally tailor service and bandwidth requirements for each segment of the middle mile network.

Designed with the specific goals of lowering both CapEx and OpEx costs over the life of the network, the Infinera DTN and ATN platforms simplify your network operations while accelerating your ability to grow and migrate your network as service requirements evolve. These platforms offer a wide range of service and architecture options which enable optimized network architectures to be deployed at a lower first-in cost. Infinera middle mile network solutions deliver the following benefits:

• Multiple service offerings fit a range of requirements: Ethernet, SONET, SAN, video, and other
• Intelligent, automated network processes lower OpEx costs while accelerating operations
• Flexible pay-as-you grow architecture lowers first-in costs and enables economical scalability
• Multiple service protection options ensure network reliability and high service availability
• Support for up to 40 lambdas on the ATN and up to 160 lambdas on the DTN enables high bandwidth networks and supports service segregation by wavelength for dedicated bandwidth
• End-to-end point and click provisioning simplifies and accelerates new service turn-up
• Comprehensive network management and network planning tools lower the cost of network operations at all phases of network ownership: design, turn-up, and network evolution