Michigan State University

The project intends to expand the optical capabilities of Merit’s existing 2,200-mile physical fiber network. MOON-Light would future-proof this established foundation to expand the optical capabilities of Merit’s existing fiber network by adjusting the sizing and capacity of the optical network to reduce power and colocation requirements and replace aging multi-slot terminal technologies with modern data center interconnect technologies capable of supporting both new and existing services from 10 Gbps to 800 Gbps capacities either natively or through aggregation onto the coherent core architecture. The proposed MOON-Light architecture will consist of ROADMs offering alternate add/drop approaches and optical amplifiers of different types optimized for specific network requirements. In this project, MOON-Light will drastically expand access to last-mile providers seeking to deliver service to unserved communities.

Merit’s existing fiber infrastructure currently runs through all counties in MI except 9. In the 74 counties where Merit/MOON-Light would have a presence, MOON-Light would enable a total of 103 access points with almost 70,000 census blocks and over 120,000 unserved locations. Merit has secured Letters of Intent from three last-mile service providers. MOON-Light will enable broadband service in their territories to at least 16,499 unserved households. Upon completion, MOON-Light could be leveraged by last-mile providers to serve thousands of unserved locations in Michigan, including the 16,499 currently unserved households in the region. At least 2,305 of these unserved households are rural. Although the complete business case for a given last-mile project will depend on additional factors as well, MOON-Light’s enablement of accessible, affordable transport services will enhance the viability of last-mile deployment project not only at the 100/20 performance level but also at much higher performance levels. Of particular importance, MOON-Light will scale easily along with the high-capacity demand of gigabit-tier last mile networks, such as FTTP, and therefore will tend to support or solidify plans for expanded or new last-mile networks with that performance level.

This is a statewide project designed to serve 16,499 currently unserved households across Michigan. The project will also enable all of Merit’s existing community members, public sector, nonprofit and private organizations, governmental agencies, educational institutions, and regional broadband service providers with expanded and economical access to layer 3 commodity Internet services, peering opportunities, and cloud service provider access by leveraging new Dark Wavelength transport services.

In addition to high capital costs per location, a major economic barrier to last-mile service in unserved areas are high transport costs to connect to the global Internet. Merit’s existing accessible, affordable middle mile network lacks the connection and traffic capacity to serve expanded or new last-mile networks. MOON-Light will solve this problem and allow Merit to make its open-access network broadly available in support of currently planned and future last-mile networks in now-unserved rural areas, such as the Upper Peninsula and Crawford County.

Merit Network, Inc. is a subrecipient of federal funds for this project. Merit’s scope of work includes network planning and implementation, third party contractor management sourcing, federal compliance, enabling middle-mile open access, engagement, and assisting with reporting and audit requirements.

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MOON-Light Project

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Michigan State University

Project Title: MOON-Light Project

Project Purpose/Type:

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Sub-recipient activities if applicable

Project Title:

MOON-Light Project