Ontario's research and education network is hoping that a new report detailing the potential economic benefits of increased networking speeds will help to convince the provincial government to fund the lion's share of a major systems upgrade. The Optical Regional Advanced Network of Ontario (ORION) is seeking $20 million to purchase and install the necessary equipment — $16 million from the Ontario government and $4 million from its institutional partners.

A proposal was submitted to the government last fall as part of the normal budgetary funding cycle but was unsuccessful in the latest Ontario Budget. Last week, it released a report by PriceWaterhouseCoopers (PWC) detailing the benefits of the existing ORION network and projects even greater economic spillovers if the network is increased from 10 Gigabits/second to 100 Gb/s.

The vast majority of ORION's networking equipment dates back to 2001 and ORION has already issued a request for proposals to begin the renewal process. The $5-million RFP is jointly funded by ORION and CANARIE but ORION president Phil Baker says further upgrading is critical if the organization wants to continue fulfilling its mission of supporting economic growth and job creation.

"Our optical and much of our routing equipment needs to be replaced with the best we can afford. We are currently able to buy some equipment with 40 to 100 Gigabit capacity but not the interfaces which are pretty pricey," says Baker, who is stepping down from the presidency this summer. "100 Gigabit will become the new norm in five years or so and others like the US Internet II and some European networks are planning to go to 100 Gigabits."

The PWC study says network demands on ORION are expected to grow at a minimum of 30% annually in the near term as institutions and new areas of research such as digital media, smart infrastructure and imaging technologies drive demand upward. It says the existing ORION network has stimulated significant benefit for the provincial economy, facilitating 1,518 jobs in the province and 2,328 nationwide. Employment income equals $84 million provincially and $120 million nationally. If the upgrade is funded and completed, the economic value of ORION jumps to $291 million provincially over 10 years, providing a return on investment of nearly 36% assuming a 30% annual growth rate, according to PWC

Baker says the growth experienced by ORION to date is greater than 40% and without an upgrade, bottlenecks begin to appear and bandwidth becomes limited.

"The pipe could get filled and traffic slowed down. We need to support bursty data," he says. "High performance computing and ORION are fundamental infrastructure so we need to think and present options to the government in new ways. The report is intended to encourage them (government) to think of modern infrastructure as something they need to invest in. Before I leave on August 1st, I'm hoping for a provincial commitment."

PWC interviewed 16 stakeholders for the study and found overwhelming support for the networking upgrade. Respondents said the network supported research across the innovation spectrum from discovery to e-education and commercialization.

"By facilitating advanced research and commercialization in Ontario, ORION is vital for the development and growth of knowledge-based industries, which depend on a highly educated workforce," states the report.

ORION connects 90 provincial institutions, providing high-speed networking to thousands of researchers and more than 1.5 million students. Those numbers will only increase as new institutions, research projects and applications come on stream, particularly those associated with the life sciences.

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