[c-nsp] 100Mb fiber aggregation/conversion/etc

[Jeff Kell]

We have a couple of areas with a need to aggregate some legacy 100FX/MM 
fiber runs.  There are three different housing clusters that are 
currently all 100FX uplinks, and 100FX back to campus.  In two areas we 
have small IDFs with 100FX back to a common plant back to campus over 
100FX, one of them aggregates on some old 2912MF-XLs, another has a set 
of 2924XLs with the fiber "daisy-chained" with loops at the MDF to 
create one long (way too many hops) chain through the IDFs.  It's old, 
but sparsely populated, and we're not looking at upgrading the IDFs just 
yet.

I'd like to use some new SM runs to the complexes to get a gigabit back 
to campus, and aggregate the 100FX "somehow".  Having the option to 
later upgrade to gig from the IDFs is a plus, but not a requirement.  I 
see the Cisco-ish options as:

* pick up some used 2912MF-XLs for spares, and try to locate a couple of 
the gigabit uplink modules for the uplinks, but that freezes the 100FX,
* pick up some used 4912s, 3508XLs, or 3550-12s and try to locate some 
cheap 100FX GBIC modules for the IDFs,
* forklift the IDFs too and just do gig (really out of our budget)

Otherwise, we could just pick up some media converters (100FX to TX) and 
aggregate the buildings with any 100Mb switch with a 1G fiber uplink.  
We have one of these rack-mounts (12 or 16 slots for converter modules) 
in the data center from another consolidation project, but it was 
"provided" for us and I don't have the original bids / specs.

Anyone have any suggestions, particularly for the media converter 
modules?  Don't need high-density, the worst-case would be 22 lines (if 
we consolidated both 2912MFs in the modular apartments), but need "more 
than 6" each place.

Jeff