MKO ComNet Working Group Meeting Minutes

Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope Headquarters, Waimea

December 12, 1996

Present:

Minutes

  1. Infrastructure Upgrades

    2. Hawaiian Tel's contractor has completed the installation of the fiber optic cable all the way from Hale Pohaku to the central offices in Waimea and Hilo. Testing is underway. At present, Keck's ATM demonstration system uses fiber down to Hale Pohaku and then microwave to Waimea. The microwave portion may be switched to the new fiber within the next month.

    Hawaiian Tel has contracted with TeleCable Systems to upgrade the distribution infrastructure at the summit. A new copper telephone trunk cable and two subducts will be installed in one of the 4-inch conduits beginning at the Summit Utility Room and extending all the way around the summit to handhole 31, which is between CSO and the batch plant. Hawaiian Tel will then install its own fiber optic trunk cable in one of the subducts. There are only two conduits between CFHT and Keck-- one contains the existing copper trunk cable, and the other contains the MKOCN fiber. In order to clear out the former so that the new trunk and subducts can be installed, temporary telephone service will be provided to Subaru, Keck and IRTF from handhole 31, using spare circuits which go to millimeter valley. If all goes according to plan, there will be no interruption in telephone service.

  2. Mainland Link

    3. It was agreed that the new T2, which came into service on Friday Dec. 6, is a big improvement over the PACCOM T1. Improvement in Web performance is particularly noticeable. However, our initial tests show that even though our new link is not congested, we are unable to achieve a throughput to most mainland sites anywhere near the capacity of a T2. This implies that the Internet is either generally congested or does not have the capacity of a T2. It was concluded that we should hold off for now on our search for alternate Internet service providers, as further improvement to the mainland link will not yield better performance at this time. The T2, set up by Sprint, has a capacity of 4 T1s or 6.312 megabits per second. It accesses the Internet via Stockton, California.

  3. Router Compatibility

    4. Pui Hin reported that she was able to obtain a Cisco demo unit and has set up a small FDDI network with this unit and two Proteon CNX 500 routers without any problem. Further, Pui Hin has observed that the interface cards of the Cisco routers are hot-swappable, a very desirable feature. With the problem IfA has had over the past several months with Proteon's support of the HSSI card, it was agreed that Cisco routers should be considered for the future. Further, facilities should coordinate their Cisco purchases to obtain maximum discounts.

  4. Hawaiian Tel Presentation

    5. Jay Garces described the advantages which are available if one uses ATM service rather than a simple high-speed serial link, such as a DS-3. The chief benefits are the ability to mix data, video and telephone traffic over the same link, and the ability to allocate bandwidth dynamically. Conversely, if one wishes to transmit only data, the extra cost of ATM is probably not justified, unless ATM equipment is the only way to achieve the required bandwidths.

    Clayton Yugawa invited each facility to contact him concerning their communications requirements and asked that they provide details of the number and location of conduits leading into their building.

  5. Next Meeting

    6. Thursday March 20, 1997, 10:00 am at JAC.
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Last updated December 7, 2001 by Miranda Hawarden-Ogata