1. Telecommunication and Network Services
Business Plan Executive Summary April 2005
Telecommunication and Network Services – Overview
Mission
The mission of the Telecommunication and Network Services (TNS) Department is to effectively deliver
quality communication services to our customers and fulfill our stewardship role for institutional
communication resources.
Services Scope
TNS is one of five departments within Information Technology Services (ITS), and is responsible for
providing a wide range of voice, video and network services and the communications infrastructure
necessary to support these services. TNS' primary purpose is to provide these services in a reliable way
with a level of quality that meets or exceeds our customer's expectations.
Organization
TNS is organized into 5 functional work groups providing the following services and functions:
Voice Services
Local & long distance telephone service
Voice applications – voice mail, calling trees
Telephone switching equipment & technicians
Voice services help desk
Approximately 17,000 telephones
Network Services
Data network
– Approximately 30,000 active data ports
– Approximately 500 network switches
Internet1 (commodity Internet) and I2 research connections
Wireless LAN services
Network operation center (NOC)
Remote access
Network engineering
Network addressing
2. • Video Services
• UITV
• CATV
• Video conferencing
• Video streaming and WEB casting
• Video uplink / downlink
– Athletic events
– Academic coverage
• Infrastructure Services
• Engineering & design services
• Copper, fiber & coax to buildings
– 70 miles of fiber cable (3000 miles of strand fiber)
– 17 miles of ductbank
• In-building communications wiring
– Category 5e wiring (supports Gigabit Ethernet service)
– 1000 miles of cable
– 73,000 faceplate jacks available
– 47,000 active jacks
• Telecommunication closets
– 300 communications closets among 130 buildings
• Business Services
• Service adds, moves and changes
• Billing
• Materials warehouse operations
• Staffing
TNS is staffed by approximately 40 full-time technical and administrative staff and 10 part-
time students. TNS Organizational Chart
3. • TNS Financials
• Overall Financial Model and Principals
• TNS is a break even enterprise
• TNS price structure is based on cost recovery
• TNS attempts to eliminate cross-subsidy between services
• Capital Funding
TNS is responsible for and maintains our capital funding. These capital funds are used for capital-
equipment refresh (i.e., funds for upgrading capital equipment after its useful depreciated life), to
purchase new capital equipment for existing or new services, and to fund other capital projects
requiring depreciable equipment.
• Revenue Sources
TNS funding sources include:
37% - from general education funds (GEF)
60% - from usage based billing
3% - from other
Expenses
TNS expenses include:
34% - Internet and trunking connections, miscellaneous equipment, and maintenance
29% - Personnel/benefit expenses
23% - Equipment depreciation
9% - Debt financing
5% - Other
4. • 2005 Action Plan
• The TNS Action Plan for 2005 identifies key projects, objectives and strategies. Following are key
projects for 2005:
Voice Services key projects for FY05
Campus telephone switch replacement – TNS is engaged in the Telephone Switch Replacement
Project (TSRP) to upgrade the telephone system campus wide. The project is driven by the need to
replace aging equipment that provides campus telephone services. TSRP will replace the existing
telephone switches with newer models to satisfy traditional services and also begin to build the
foundation for deployment of enhanced telephony services using VoIP components.
• The implementation phase of the project has an 18-month duration which began in early 2004 and
will continue through much of 2005 which includes the following major key activities:
• Switch replacement and cutover
• Rollout CallerID service campus wide – including deployment of analog callerID capable phones
• Rollout Music On-hold capability campus wide
• Build the VoIP core and begin investigating enhanced service delivery
• Tailor voice operations to support the new services
• Mossman Services Building telephone switch upgrade – Unrelated to the TSRP project, the
telephone switch serving Mossman Services Building will be upgraded to satisfy the manufacturer’s
announced end-of-support issues.
• Cellular service support – TNS continues to receive requests from cellular carriers for access to
campus to place antennas and equipment to reduce density and increase coverage. The carriers
are interested in base station locations and in-building distribution systems. TNS is engaged in a
project to investigate a means of supporting cellular service on campus that provides equal access
to University resources by interested carriers.
5. • Network Services Key Projects
Regional optical network – The University of Iowa, Iowa State University, the University of
Wisconsin-Madison and the University of Minnesota are collaborating to develop a regional
optical network that 1) provides each institution needed access to Tier-1 and national
research network providers, and, 2) interconnects the institutions, providing significant
advantages that cannot be achieved and are not affordable individually. Some of the
significant benefits are:
• Significantly reduced costs to each institution for high data rate network access.
• Flexibility to meet increasing and varied network bandwidth needs on an ad hoc basis thus
supporting multi-gigabit research bandwidth requirements and connecting to key research
networks on an as-needed basis.
• Ability to provision network services not offered by commercial service providers but
required for some research projects.
• Reliable affordable connectivity to commodity Internet, Internet2, and National Lambda Rail
research networks.
• Ownership of the fiber removes complexity of contractual obligations imposed by service
providers and allows us to decide which technology is most appropriate based on our needs
and circumstances, not the service providers.
• Brings affordable high data rate access closer to non participating neighboring universities in
the future and offers more choice of carriers.
• Better business continuity practices. The regional optical network will position the
universities to take advantage of real-time offsite data storage and recovery through peer
institution facilities or off-campus commercial facilities over the network.
6. • Each of the universities participating in the proposed regional optical network has responsibility for
a segment of the ring. The University of Iowa would be responsible for the segment between Des
Moines and Chicago. This segment of the ring will be the primary traffic route for commodity
Internet and Internet2 traffic for the University of Iowa and Iowa State University. The segment will
carry backup traffic for all regional players.
A representative group of the regional institutions is currently working with potential carriers to
determine cost and availability which will result in a request for proposal for a 20-year prepaid
arrangement. This initiative which began in late 2004, will progress well into 2005 with potential
closure by end of calendar year 2005.
High-speed network services to the University Apartments – This project completes ResNet, a
service provided by Residence Services in conjunction with Information Technology Services (ITS)
that provides all students living in Residence Services’ facilities with high speed (broadband like)
connection to the campus network and the Internet.
The necessity for students to connect to University and student administrative resources; to
research and library resources; to other institutions and to the Internet in general are key drivers
for this project. The needed connectivity should be at reasonable speeds with benefit of security
that is on par with the service offered to students who live in campus residence halls. Dial-up
modem is currently the only means of providing University Apartment tenants with network access.
Admittedly this does not provide the needed connectivity but it’s the only option available given
the current infrastructure on the Far West Campus.
7. • High-speed network access is provided to all other students living in the residence halls through the
ResNet network on campus. This project would extend that capability to the University Apartments
located on the Far West Campus. The project will be complete near the beginning of the Fall
(2005/2006) semester.
Campus Network Refresh Project – It is necessary that the campus data network be upgraded (i.e.,
refreshed) on a defined and regular cycle in order to keep the network relatively current. On
average TNS replaces 15-20% of the user data ports per year which results in a 5-6 year
cycle. There are some exceptions where equipment life cycles are longer.
As part of this years network refresh project, TNS will get all user-ports connected at 100Mbps
minimum (the campus standard), provide Gigabit Ethernet service to the desktop for those who
need it, upgrade the sub-gigabit network connections to building root switches to 1 gigabit,
upgrade the border routers to accommodate the recently obtained gigabit Ethernet connections to
Chicago and DesMoines (Internet1 and Internet2), and upgrade the network core from 1 gigabit to
10 Gigabit.
With the new equipment, the project will provide triple speed (10/100/1000 Mbps) to
approximately 30% of all campus ports. Gigabit service will become a supported desktop standard
beginning in FY06. The project also provides for power over Ethernet (POE) to approximately
13,200 ports to be used for powering wireless access points and other services. Finally, the refresh
project will help prepare for the campus network to support advanced service capabilities such as a
campus-wide penalty box and perhaps VoIP which is dependant on having per-port switching and
functional management for every user port. The network refresh project gets us a long way toward
meeting the prerequisites for such services.
8. • Upgrade ResNet Services – TNS in conjunction with Residence Services will upgrade portions of the
residence network (ResNet) which serves students in the residence halls and the University
Apartments. The general scope of these projects include:
• ResNet management network refresh to replace equipment with announced end-of-life
• ResNet statistics collections upgrade to include University Apartments and which is necessary to
support the campus penalty box system
• Investigating the next generation of a campus network intrusion detection – TNS in conjunction
with the campus security office will investigate other approaches to providing network intrusion
detection and prevention on campus as a next step in the evolution of the existing campus system.
Wireless Service Expansion – Wireless service is an enabling and facilitating technology providing
convenient access to network resources beyond wired boundaries. ITS has provided wireless
network access on campus at some level for approximately four years under pilot initiatives and
testing various technologies.
The use of wireless network technology to support a broader diversity of locale on the University of
Iowa campus is steadily increasing. Access to networked resources through a wireless connection is
expected to become more strategic to teaching, learning, research, and the business of the
University.
9. • The thrust of the service to date has been to provide coverage in common areas
(libraries, student gathering areas, conference spaces) and some classrooms and
labs primarily to support faculty and students. The goal is to offer a broad-based
service that augments the wired network service with as short an installation
period as possible. Service delivery continues as the broader-based plan is
established and put in place. TNS’ goal is to have wireless service defined and
network installed / upgraded by the Fall semester
TNS will apply a 4-step plan for getting from current service to a better defined
and supported campus-wide service by:
• Establishing a wireless service advisory group representing faculty, students, staff
and technologists
• Obtaining end-user input that can be translated into requirements for a wireless
service and service description
• Obtaining executive sponsorship necessary for legitimacy and support of the
service at upper levels of the University administration
• Developing the implementation and deployment strategy
10. • Video Services key projects for FY05
Satellite uplink upgrade – TNS operates a satellite uplink service that allows live or pre-recorded
video to be uplinked to satellites and made available to anyone that has authorization and access to
a downlink facility. The most common uses for this service are athletic events that are broadcast
from campus, Athletic Department coaches’ shows, new conferences and promotions, and
interviews with campus experts for major broadcast and cable TV feeds. There is also a small
amount of use by the public at large.
Much of the current equipment and technology is about 20 years old and is no longer supported by
the manufacturers. Another significant issue, which surfaced sooner than expected, is the
requirement by the broadcasters for football and basketball games for Dual Thread High Definition
(HD) video for many games next season. To support this, we require a full upgrade of the entire
system.
Since our funding model relies on this “game revenue” to break even, this has forced a technology
and spending decision upon us. TNS is investigating alternatives for supporting this service.
Video conferencing and streaming service expansion – TNS is engaged in enhancing video
conferencing and video streaming services to satisfy a broadening customer base. These services
have been supported for several years within TNS, under a lesser defined model. Relatively recent
changes in technology and increased demand for these services on campus is cause for TNS to
review our technical, operations, and support capabilities.
11. • Infrastructure Services key projects for FY05
Redundant fiber connection between Main Campus and Oakdale Campus – Recently TNS was
presented the opportunity to purchase an underground communications utility conduit buried
along the CRANDIC railroad between Main Campus and Oakdale Campus that provides an ideal
route for reliable redundancy with capability to support immediate and long-term fiber capacity
needs. The opportunity is especially attractive because it allows segmenting the conduit making it
possible to connect other University facilities along the route in lieu of current leased services and
overall reduces operating costs.
One other attraction of the opportunity is the flexibility it offers to support the needs of other non-
profit groups, in a particular case the Iowa City Community School District (ICCSD), by allowing the
primary right holder (i.e., the University) to share fiber under separate agreements between the
University and those groups. In this case ICCSD has agreed to cost share the lease and fiber
installation in order to use fiber strands to connect their central administration office with
approximately eight schools along the route to provide high-bandwidth communications to those
schools. This cost sharing arrangement benefits the University and ICCSD by reducing capital and
operating costs.
The fiber to be installed in the conduit as part of this project, will also be used to provide
communications connectivity to the University’s Coral Center facility in Coralville allowing the
elimination the reoccurring costs of leased circuits while increasing the bandwidth capability to the
facility.
12. • The solution best satisfies the requirements, offers the lowest capital and operational costs and
provides the greatest flexibility for long-term communications service between Main Campus and
Oakdale Campus. The benefits are:
• Satisfies the primary objective by providing a reliable and redundant connection to Oakdale
Campus
• Capital costs and operating costs are significantly reduced compared to alternative means and
methods of connecting the campuses
• Reduces operational costs for leased communications services to Coral Center
• Supports Iowa City Community School District while reducing both University and ICCSD capital and
operating costs
• Engineering and review services for capital construction projects – TNS provides engineering and
review services focused on the communications infrastructure for new campus buildings and major
renovations. The buildings that are under construction and require TNS services are:
• Pomerantz Career Center
• Tennis center complex
• New Art building
• Carver Biological Research Building
• Kinnick Stadium Renovation
• Chemistry Building
• Iowa Memorial Union building
13. • Relocation of the TNS warehouse to new site – To
accommodate construction of a new campus recreation
center TNS warehouse operations will be required to move
to an alternate site. TNS will work with Facilities Planning
to identify that site and relocate the operations.
Business Services key projects for FY05
Facilities management replacement - TNS is in the request
for proposal process to acquire a Facilities Management
System to manage TNS services, infrastructure and
billing. The project team is currently reviewing vendor
proposals and preparing for on-site demonstrations.
Implementation is scheduled to begin summer 2005 with
final production migration in the spring of 2006 .
