Map of the area immediately impacted by the ONAMI construction project. The circled area in scheduled for excavation this summer, requiring extensive revision of conduit and cable routes

Impacts of the ONAMI Project on Campus Voice and Data Networks

Dave Barta
Director, Telecommunications Services
dbarta@uoregon.edu

The conduit and cables running through the ONAMI footprint must be replaced or relocated before full- scale construction of the new underground facility can begin in late August. In order to make that happen our Telecommunications and Network Services crews must:

• place next-generation technology components of the campus PBX telephone system into remote locations in five buildings, replacing the equivalent components in the basement of Oregon Hall
  
• prepare those buildings and rooms for the new equipment, including improved cooling and power to these rooms and new cable connections to the buildings which will be served from those locations
  
• replace all of the oldest digital telephones (model 7434) on the campus with newer ones
  
• place high speed single-mode fiberoptic cable connections to some buildings
  
• replace traditional telephones in an additional off-campus location with IP phones that run exclusively on the data network and reconfigure the network to reliably and securely support them
  
• place a new manhole and excavate and install conduit in 13th Street by the parking kiosk, connecting the steam tunnel to an existing underground utility vault across from the Carson loading dock
  
• install new copper and fiberoptic cables in those ducts to connect Oregon Hall to portions of the existing cables that will be cut
  
• splice the new cables into the old ones

For the most part, the impact of this work on users of the campus telephone and data networks will be minimal. Nonetheless, some disruption is unavoidable, and you may be affected by one or more of the following activities:

1. The replacement of model 7434 telephones (currently underway). As there are a couple of choices of new telephones and they have different button configurations, we are working with individual users on this.
   
2. Construction on 13th St. to excavate the stretch from the tunnel to the vault. Vehicle traffic in this area will have to be rerouted.
   
3. Construction activity and increased traffic to telephone rooms in the Knight Library, Clinical Services Building, Lillis Business Center, Baker Downtown Center, and Living Learning Center in particular, but also to the Building Entrance Terminals (typically in the basement) of virtually every building in the older section of the campus.
   
4. Cutover of telephones from the old cables to the new modules. This will be invisible, but there are so many telephones that will be affected (roughly 3,500) that there will undoubtedly be trouble reports. We will be working with telephone coordinators in the affected buildings so they’ll know when a disconnected telephone might be the result of the project.
   
5. Cutover of data networks in campus buildings from existing fiber optic cables to new ones. As with telephone cutovers, this will be largely invisible, but some troubleshooting may be necessary to keep systems running smoothly.

This is a project that would normally be planned and scheduled over the course of a year or more, but in order to facilitate the construction of ONAMI it is very much compressed and is consuming most of the focus of Telecom Services as well as significant resources from Network Services. We appreciate the forbearance of our users with any inconveniences that result. In the long run it not only enables the ONAMI construction but also moves the campus telephone system a step into the next generation of campus voice services.