ANN ARBOR, Mich. – Merit Network engineers have finished installing new ADVA Optical Networking equipment that provides dense wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM) service in Monroe, Southfield, and Toledo. Merit now has 10 gigabit-per-second (GBps) connectivity between the three locations, as well as three 10 Gbps connections between Southfield and Toledo.
“The DWDM service has an unlimited capacity, so it gives us enormous amounts of future capacity” said Bert Rossi, network architect for Merit Network.
Over the next two and half months, Merit will be improving its Flint metro fiber ring from 1 Gbps to 10 Gbps connectivity and upgrade the connections of University of Michigan-Flint, Genesee Intermediate School District, and GLC-Flint.
The upgrades are part of Merit’s continual process for improving its backbone infrastructure. Last December, Merit’s engineers upgraded 16 nodes on Merit’s backbone network with DWDM equipment, which provided 10 Gbps service for the first time in the Upper Peninsula. The upgrades significantly improved the connectivity for Merit’s governing Members in the U.P.—Lake Superior State University, Northern Michigan University and Michigan Technological University—as well as for Ferris State University, Grand Valley State University, and Western Michigan University.