SURA IT Initiatives & Strategy: Infrastructure Initiatives: SURA’s Role in NLR (National Light Rail)

In April 2004 the SURA Board of Trustees made a commitment to engage in discussions to create a southern route for the National LambdaRail (I-10 route). This commitment, coupled with the no cost dark fiber available through the SURA – AT&T GridFiber Agreement, allowed SURA to play a key role in precipitating additional commitments from the SURA states of Louisiana and Oklahoma to join the NLR as full members. This resulted in the re-conceptualization of the NLR national backbone as illustrated below.

SURA and NLR now have an MOU in place that provides SURA with representation on the NLR Board, a 1 Ge (Gigabit Ethernet) service between Tulsa , Houston , Baton Rouge , Jacksonville , Atlanta , Raleigh , Washington and NYC, as well as access to NLR wave services at member cost.

As can be seen in the maps, this new NLR backbone provides a much greater depth of connectivity options for the SURA region, particularly for Florida , Louisiana , Texas and Oklahoma . The April 2004 resolution of the SURA Board and the continuing efforts of SURA and the SURA IT community have resulted in the reshaping of the National LambdaRail in a way that is very advantageous to the SURA region and to the nation as a whole.