Dakota Network Carrier

To reduce the digital divide in the not very dense zones

There exists with the the United States more than one thousand of historical operators known as " IOC", independent of RBOC, present mainly in the local government agencies in rural environment. The majority are old administrations belonging to the local government agency ensuring a public service mission, but some of them are from now on companies of private law or exploited as co-operatives.

Of a surface of 183.022 km ², the North Dakota is populated of 636.677 inhabitants (2005), that is to say one population density less than 4 inhabitants to the km ². Under these conditions, the supply of services high banc with the general public and the companies is an expensive investment. DCN is the typical example of an initiative of local government agencies in primarily rural medium which gathered in order to mutualiser their investments in telecommunications and capacity to provide to their managed and to the companies of the services high banc of quality. The operator thus made up carries out economies of scale and ensures a cover of the services on more than 90% of the territory of this state.

Proposed services

The proposed services by DCN include the services " Ethernet" carrier; , VPN, specialized connections, ATM, Frame Relay and of course access to the Internet high banc.

The network

DCN exploits a network 100% based on fiberoptics an overall length of 2.500 km, which serves the whole of the territory of the state. Loops SONNET SDH are used with a channel of protection to ensure possible level of quality of service a highest.

DCN recently modernized its network backbone with a technology DWDM provided by the Canadian industrialist Nortel, which made it possible to increase the transport capacity in a report/ratio of almost 300 times. Although the operator continues to offer services of loops SONNET OC-48 on all the territory of the state, technology DWDM from now on is privileged and makes it possible to offer services " Ethernet" carrier; to 10 Gbits/s. the network thus supports increasingly important volumes of in particular video traffic, voice and data transmissions.

The network is also used on the scale of the state to create a virtual private network with high banc on which are connected in closed groups of users the various administrations of the state, school and university établissments.

DCN deployed 8 points of presence in the North Dakota in order to mutualiser the interconnections between the various operators " IOC" members of association and the national operators. The network is supervised starting from a center of exploitation network (" Network Operations Center " or NOC) located at Bismarck. Very recently, DCN introduced technology " PBB-TE " in order to offer services " Ethernet" carrier; , which makes it possible to the customers to transport the voice, it video and data in “native” form Ethernet.

IOC at the origin of the creation of DCN

BEK Communications Co-operative (seat with Steele, ND)
Consolidated Telcom (seat with Dickinson, ND)
Dakota Central Telecommunications Co-operative (seat with Carrington, ND)
Dickey Rural Telephones Co-operative (seat with Ellendale, ND)
Inter-Community Telephone Company LLC (seat with Cooperstown, ND)
Midstate Telephone Company (seat with Beach, ND)
Moore & Liberty Telephone Company (seat with Enderlin, ND)
North Dakota Telephone (seat with Devils Lake, ND)
Northwest Communications (seat with Ray, ND)
Polar Communications (seat with Park To rivet, ND)
Red River Technologies (seat with Abercrombie, ND)
Reservation Telephones (seat with Parshall, ND)
SRT Communications (seat with Minot, ND)
United Telephone Mutual Aid Corporation (seat with Langdon, ND)
West River Telephone (seat with Hazen, ND)

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