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Crain’s Special Report Part III: Why Argonne became its own telecom provider

September 19, 2012 When Charlie Catlett went looking for a super-fast connection between big research computers in Urbana and Chicago more than a decade ago, only one telecom carrier was willing to offer it - at a fraction of the capacity he wanted and at a price tag of $1 million a month. Instead, “We became our own phone company,” said Mr. Catlett, a senior computer scientist at Argonne National Laboratory. The national lab leased unlit fiber optic cable and committed to operating and maintaining the system, instead of just contracting for turnkey service like you might do for your home. Joe Mambretti, director of Northwestern’s International Center for Advanced Internet Research, estimates that higher-education and research institutions have installed or leased 40,000 miles of fiber nationwide in the past several years. Large companies, such as Ford Motor Co., also built or acquired their own fiber networks. “There are very few companies that aren’t dependent on digital information,” Mr. Mambretti said. “Increasingly, companies want private networks as opposed to the public Internet.” To read the entire story, see: www.chicagobusiness.com/article/20120919/NEWS08/120919818/why-argonne-became-its-own-telecom-provider