DOD's big deal = good news for optical? - For Starters

News reports naming the "winners" in the Defense Information Systems Agency's GIG-BE (Global Information Grid-Bandwidth Extension) project apparently have jumped the proverbial gun. Two reports had Juniper Networks as the winner of the router portion of the contract, with the optical transport piece going to Ciena, the MSPP (multiservice provisioning platform) part to Cisco Systems, with Sycamore Networks snapping up the optical switch award. But a DISA official noted that network equipment contracts for GIG-BE aren't expected until much later in the year. What DISA has authorized so far is for SAIC (Science Applications International Corp.) to proceed with the testing of the equipment, the official said. "Vendors' names will not be released since the equipment acquisition still remains in evaluation pending source selection," the agency noted in a statement.

Although the market has always had an interest in big government buys, the GIG-BE program is generating more than the usual excitement because of the prolonged telecom winter. DISA is expected to spend about $900 million to provide 10-Gbps connections to about 90 sites around the world, although the total number of locations served could be much higher as GIG-BE is delivered to all Defense Department sites. Perhaps somewhat optimistically, DOD expects a major portion of GIG-BE to be deployed by September 2004.

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Because DOD will be buying everything from dark fiber up through the IP layer, the procurement has sent ripples throughout the carrier market and equipment vendors. Indeed, although the bids for the fiber portion of the contract were submitted some time ago, the contract for the fiber isn't expected to be awarded until later this month. Dark fiber aside, the government is expected to purchase optical transport gear, optical switches, MSPPs and routers. Perhaps because of the scale of the program and also because DOD will be looking for proven equipment, vendors have battened the hatches when it comes to saying anything about their participation in GIG-BE.

Although it's probably no more than guesswork, equipment vendors that have appeared on analysts' short list include Alcatel, Cisco, Ciena, Juniper, Lucent and Tellabs. But analysts also say the buy holds opportunities for relative newcomers such as Corvis and Sycamore in the optical cross-connect space. Indeed, Corvis has claimed that it was invited to take part in some early testing by SAIC, which is acting as DISA's right hand for the GIG-BE project. Despite the government's history of picking established players when it comes to network buys, it's not at all clear if, at least in the routing space, either Cisco or Juniper can at this time deliver on the capacity that DISA is looking for. On the optical switch side, the government is keeping its options open by indicating that while it would prefer an all-optical network, its fallback position would be to go for switches with an electrical fabric.

While the MSPPs would used to provide a transport capability for all sorts of non-IP services, DISA ultimately wants to put its data, voice and video on an IP network and to integrate this network with its existing Defense Information Systems Network. With each site served by a pair of POPs that would have diverse connectivity to the network, DISA is looking for high network availability. It also wants a fat pipes for ensuring zero packet loss and an extremely fast response time. Although DISA officials would have preferred not building a private network, they don't believe their requirements can be met via the public networks. Moreover, until DISA announces the win, it's not clear whether it'll award a single or multiple contracts to a particular carrier or award separate contracts to multiple carriers.

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