Florida LambdaRail (FLR)

Florida LambdaRail (FLR) was formed by higher education institutions to advance optical research and education networking within Florida. FLR establishes a foundation for the next-generation networks needed to support large-scale research, education outreach, public/private partnerships and IT infrastructure essential to economic development. 

FLR links research institutions around the country with connectivity to international research networks. Building a stable, high-bandwidth statewide network is essential to Florida's education and research goals, and is a vital element in Florida's economic development strategy. FLR will establish the state of Florida on the cutting edge of computer connectivity, and provide strong economic development potential through industry partnerships with Florida's colleges and universities.

Goals and Uses

• Build a high-speed Florida network for research and education
• Put Florida universities on equal footing with best research institutions in nation
• Cost avoidance/reduction - aggregate commodity Internet & Internet2 services
• Provide services to other Florida colleges & universities
• Increase potential for corporate partnerships and economic development

How fast is Florida LambdaRail?

• The speed of FLR is currently up to 10 gigabits* per second (one light wave).
• The commodity (commercial) Internet runs at speeds of 300 megabits** per second.
• FLR has the capacity to go to a total of 32 light waves.

*In data communications, a gigabit is one billion bits, or 1,000,000,000 (that is, 109) bits.

**When used to described data transfer rates, it refers to one million bits. Networks are often measured in megabits per second, abbreviated as Mbps.

NOTE: FLR participates in peering connections with the major players, such as Amazon, Google, YouTube, Apple, Microsoft, Netflix, 300+ universities, research and education establishments, etc.

FLR Success Story

Realtime Weather Information Systems

The School of Engineering and their collaborators in the Advanced Weather Information Systems Laboratory are working on real time weather information systems, including real time wireless data collection, assimilation and high-resolution mesoscale atmospheric modeling.. 

Not only do the field sensors (such as the Florida Road Weather Information System) and local datasets need to be rapidly assembled, but large gridded Global model results from the National Weather Service models are rapidly downloaded to initialize the high resolution model. The global model is then blended with added local data, satellite and Doppler radar data to start the high resolution run with the optimum state of the current atmosphere. Each model run produces a file so large it would nearly fill a CD-ROM, so Lambda Rail bandwidth is very important to the model output, as well as assembly of the input

These model results using the new Weather Research and Forecast (WRF) model developed by the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) have been shown to provide much better sea breeze and convective rain results in Florida than previous models. The goal of this Laboratory data collection and modeling effort is to produce improved and timely data, analysis and forecasting tools to Florida weather forecasters, environmental managers, and other researchers such as hydrologic, coastal ocean and estuary modelers needing better wind and rain inputs to their models.