IRNE FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
Integrated Regional Network Enterprise
IRNE is a telecommunications network plan that will carry all voice, video and data communications for the City of Portland and its partners. The IRNE is a high-capacity, high-reliability design that does more than conventional leasing currently practiced by the City.
The IRNE will address and help solve several critical problems for the City of Portland and the Portland metro area.
The IRNE solution is an engineering collaboration among public sector agencies, leveraging multiple sources of funds and telecommunications plant to form a well-engineered, and well-executed network architecture and service operation. IRNE creates a single platform network that all partners can share, it assures connectivity among the organizations and throughout the regional network and it allows smaller governments and rural agencies to participate without large capital expenditures.
ComNet has been designing the IRNE for over three years. Using duct, conduit and fiber optic cable obtained through the franchising process for cable and telecommunications, along with networks deployed by PDOT, ODOT and Tri-Met, the City has acquired nearly all the fiber optic plant necessary to connect the core sites of the IRNE partners. The network will run SONET, ATM and Ethernet protocols providing high-speed connections to all locations served. The Network Operations Center will be located at the Portland Communications Center, a fully secure and seismically safe location in east Portland. Locations served on the core ring will be provided with dual building entries, supporting a fully diverse-ring architecture.
The core ring will be fed by the following feeder networks: the AT&T Institutional Network (I-NET), currently under construction in Portland and Multnomah County, the Qwest local loop, and a C-LEC provider or consortium of providers to be selected in an RFP process undertaken jointly by the partners. A commercial carrier network will provide rate-adaptive DSL connections to the smaller locations and rural locations not located on the fiber. Traffic from these sites will be aggregated at network aggregation points throughout the IRNE and backhauled to the Portland Communications Center for on-net distribution and the Pittock Internet Hotel for egress to the Internet. The IRNE will be capable of providing voice, video and data connections to all partner sites, with a minimum of 256 Kbps connections at the remote sites, and up to 1 Gbps connections to sites on the core ring.
Our private network solution of loop architecture and redundancy will optimize the network architecture for public-safety grade reliability so the network is engineered for zero downtime. As e-government and electronic learning technologies become increasingly pervasive, engineering for reliability becomes extremely important to our citizens and constituents.
The City has the franchising authority over the rights-of-way for telecommunications and public utilities. Over the years, we have been requiring any telecommunications carrier, who wants to place conduit in our streets for their network, to build additional conduit for the City as a condition of receiving a franchise and permit. We had collected these empty conduit runs all over the City, and the Cable and Franchise Office was very interested in seeing them put to use. We began designing a fiber plant that would take advantage of these conduit resources and create a wide-area network for use by the City. As we started to do that, we realized we should collaborate with other public sector agencies, because in some places we had conduit where they needed it and in other places they had fiber where we needed it.
Another significant financial outcome of this project will be the ability to leverage millions of dollars of network assets regionally, networks that otherwise would develop independently without coordination. The implementation of the fully realized network is estimated to save all local governments in the region millions of dollars in networking cost to the users over leased alternatives. Preliminary analysis indicated that the City of Portland alone can expect to eliminate nearly 95% of its leased data circuits, while increasing bandwidth per site an average of 500%. This can be done in a cost-neutral, financial package where no new money is necessary.
The phone system will be just as reliable as it is today but will deliver many more features for little or no added cost. Because the switching equipment for IRNE will be administered and provisioned by ComNet staff, adding or changing features will be quicker and easier to do. In most cases, those employees with multi-line sets (also known as Pset) will be changed over to a different make/model. The same functionality (and more) will be inherent in the new phone. Training will be provided.
Data services will be totally different than they are today. IRNE will be a state-of-the-art network that will provide high bandwidths, the ability to transmit video and the ability to use advanced applications - all at a much lower cost to the City overall.
No, though some Portland area dial-tone providers are worried that this is the case. The IRNE will be a regional network. It will serve other public entities that desire to use the services inherent in the IRNE. By sharing the network among a larger number of public sector users, average costs will be lowered and savings will accrue not only to the City, but also to other public entities using the network. The IRNE will also interface with the public telecommunications networks for access to and from the "outside world."
The IRNE will be a network serving only government and education institutions in the region. Service will be provided to City of Portland governmental entities. Service will also be made available on an optional basis to other government jurisdictions, including K-12 and higher education institutions with a need to interconnect with local government and each other.
The IRNE will not be a commercial provider of bandwidth to business or residential customers. Neither is the IRNE envisioned to be a common carrier. It is a private network, which combines a variety of government owned or controlled physical telecommunications infrastructures to provide the best communication paths possible at the lowest operating cost. The intent of developing the IRNE is to leverage public investment in communications capability so that the highest effectiveness is achieved at the lowest cost. The IRNE is intended to reduce duplication of investment between various government entities at the municipal level.
ComNet has received certification as a Competitive Local Exchange Carrier (CLEC). This certification will be limited to providing services to other public sector entities – service provided to the City of Portland bureaus will be as a private network.
Although it receives direction from the City Council and its clients, IRNE services are supported through a rate-based budget that receives no direct funding from the General Fund. ComNet has, as it does with all other telecommunications services, established rates for use of the network. The rate formulas have taken into account operating costs, maintenance and replacement costs, planned capital projects and contingency.
Because ComNet has to stabilize revenues to make the IRNE investment, voice and data rates were frozen at 2001 levels (Bud 5). In return, clients will benefit from a rich feature set for voice services and broadband data connectivity – both are advantages that could not be realized prior to IRNE without a great deal of additional expense.
Consequently, a base rate has been predetermined for each bureau. Should our clients choose to add additional phone lines (dial tone), their per line cost will increase by $28.68 per AP (Accounting Period). As was done in the past, a secondary cost will also be added depending on the type of equipment, voicemail and special applications that are requested in addition to basic dial tone.
Although the base count/rate of services is fixed, the level of lines or services added and deleted will be monitored each AP. At this time the appropriate increase or decrease in billing will be applied.
Example: The base count for a particular client is 100 lines. An additional 25 phone lines are added. The cost of $28.68 (per line-per AP), plus additional feature costs, are added to the clients billing. A short time later, ten phone lines are disconnected. Because the number of phone lines being disconnected does not take the current level of total phone lines below the fixed base, the clients billing will be adjusted to reflect the decrease in total line count. If the client disconnects 30 lines, they will receive an adjustment for 25 (due to the fact that 30 would have taken them below their predetermined base).
| Base level | 100 |
| Additions | +25 |
| Disconnects | -10 |
| Total | 115 (still fifteen over the base) |
Not included in the "frozen rate" are pagers, cellular phones and some non-IRNE data, e.g. SCADA circuits.
The data changes are beginning to take shape now. These changes will be transparent. The phone changes will take place beginning late 3Q 2002 and run through 1Q 2003 - depending on the location of your voice services. A detailed timeline will be provided in the near future.
At this point we do not believe so. We cannot guarantee, however, that it will not. The cutover plan cannot be determined until discussions and negotiations have taken place with the vendors that are awarded the contracts. This will become more clear in the next 60-90 days.
