by Joe King
NIU-Net, the university’s high-speed fiber-optic computing network, took a major leap forward this month.
The Illinois Department of Transportation held a ceremonial ribbon cutting marking the completion of work to install fiber optic cable beneath I-39 between Rockford and Rochelle.
Creation of that link eliminates what was perhaps the biggest hurdle to completion of NIU-Net when the network was first conceived in 2004. At that time, the university had secured use of fiber under 1-88 to connect the main campus in DeKalb with the branch campus in Naperville, as well as points west of DeKalb. It also was known that fiber existed beneath I-90 to provide a link between the campuses in Hoffman Estates and Rockford. However, no such fiber existed under I-39 and there was no plan in place to install any.
The City of Rochelle and NIU collaborated on a 2005 proposal to install fiber between Rochelle and Rockford. IDOT took the plan under advisement, and in 2006 announced that it would fund the project itself.
With that piece of the puzzle now in place, plans are progressing quickly to secure the remaining connections between Naperville and Hoffman Estates and from there to Rockford, which will complete the NIU-Net ring. The work should be finished sometime in 2008, said Herb Kuryliw, chief network architect for the university. In fact, school districts, hospitals and municipalities along that portion of the ring already have pledged enough financial support fund the work.
“Throughout this process we have been able to find partners who also wanted and needed the network,” said Wally Czerniak, NIU associate vice president for Technology Services. “None of us could afford it on our own, but when we combined our efforts things moved quickly.”
In DeKalb County, where the university developed that cooperative model, school districts that partnered with the university (and local cable company DeKalb Fiber Optic) to install cable have been among the first to see the benefits of the technology.
At a Nov. 8 meeting sponsored by the DeKalb County Community Foundation, officials from school districts in DeKalb and Sycamore described to their counterparts from around the county how they are using the fiber to dramatically improve communication between buildings and to tap into educational resources on the Internet at much higher speeds, and much lower prices, than previously possible.
Both districts also are taking advantage of the fiber to ditch their existing phone service in favor of voice over Internet phone systems, saving about $70,000 per year, per district.
The university plans to use the experience gained with those school districts to forge similar partnerships with others along the route of the network.
School officials from throughout DeKalb County made it clear that they are eager to join in: An hour after the meeting formally adjourned the administrators remained behind, swapping ideas and planning for the future.