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Lighting the way forward: Merit Network and Michigan State University project could mark a turning point in digital equity for Michigan

By the end of this year, Michigan’s digital divide may be on the verge of a rapid narrowing.

Merit Network has a history of trailblazing. The country’s oldest regional research and education network is continuing in that tradition with the rollout of Project MOON-Light (Michigan Open Optical Network – Leveraging Innovation to Get High-Speed Technology). A collaboration between Merit and Michigan State University, this upgrade to Merit’s 4,000-mile-long network heralds a new era in fiber optic telecommunications. This project is supported by a $10.5 million federal Broadband Infrastructure Program grant through the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA).

Project MOON-Light is one of the first next-generation infrastructure projects of its kind in the country. It likely will be the first to roll-out at a statewide scale, setting the strategic foundation for Michigan’s future last-mile projects. MOON-Light is an equipment-only upgrade project and does not involve the buildout of any additional fiber infrastructure, but will impact Merit’s entire existing statewide footprint. Project MOON-Light will increase Merit’s capacity enabling the network to meet future needs across Michigan. Once completed, coherent channels can support up to 200G at deployment and up to 800G in the future. This will future-proof Merit’s middle-mile infrastructure, ensuring the upgrades prove worth the investment deep into the 21st century.

Merit is introducing MOON-Light with a heightened emphasis on the open network and deployment needs of our existing members and rural broadband collaborators, including last-mile providers and new parties launching service in Michigan. These new capabilities will enable Merit to optimize deployments of existing and future high-speed, coherent optical interfaces in a multi-vendor, multi-service environment. A coherent-based optical network will also enable new advanced services, including optical restoration with classes of service, and spectrum services including spectrum demarcation facilitated with new colorless node configurations for broadband service providers.

As MOON-Light enables last-mile broadband service to tens of thousands of locations, Michigan could stand witness to one of the most impactful breakthroughs for robust, affordable connectivity in its history. The state ranked 32nd in the nation for broadband availability in a 2021 report from the Michigan High-Speed Internet Office, which used U.S. Census data. Some 1.24 million households (31.5%) lacked a permanent, fixed internet connection at home. Some 549,000 Michigan households, or 13.8% of the total, did not have any internet subscription at all as of 2019, according to U.S. Census estimates.

Project MOON-Light will improve those numbers by moving Merit’s OAN to the leading edge of middle-mile technology. This will remove traditional barriers of distance and geography for remote last-mile networks. With over 100 distributed exchange connectors (access points), it will allow interconnecting local service providers to bring affordable and robust broadband to homes and businesses.

Partnerships with commercial and community last-mile operators will be key. The optical upgrade will create excess network capacity to serve local private ISPs, cooperatives, and community networks that operate last-mile facilities. Operators stand to benefit from improved speeds, reduced expenses, and accelerated timelines for their last-mile deployments to unserved and underserved communities.

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