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Index of 2100 previous posts since March 2003
Archives
RSS/XML
Recent Blog Headlines
About Al Bonnyman
"What's this blog thing about, anyway?"
Partial list: power utilities with fiber
Sponsored by:
Fiber Planners Inc.
Designers of fiber networks for electric utilities and communities.
Index of 2100 previous posts since March 2003
Friday, June 13, 2003
City of Quincy, Florida to offer broadband services
City of Quincy, Florida to offer broadband services
Article.
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"Verizon exec talks up FTTP"
"Verizon exec talks up FTTP"
Another good link from Jim Baller, this one to an interview with a Verizon executive regarding his company's plans for fiber to the home.
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"At Last, the Web Hits 100 MPH "
"At Last, the Web Hits 100 MPH "
When the Internet showed up mainstream America's horizon in the 1990s, it was heralded with hype about major changes in the way we would live in the near-future. Not much of that materialized and eventually the whole dot.com bubble collapsed catastrophically a few years later.
Jim Baller pointed me towards good article in Business Week that makes the point, using concrete examples and statistics, that the U.S. is finally approaching a major "tipping point" in terms of changes in the way we live and do business as a critical mass of Americans finally starts getting fast enough broadband access at home.
(Left unsaid is what happens to the folks that don't have such as access in their communities).
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I'm away on vacation June 14 to June 21
I'm away on vacation June 14 to June 21
If the weather's bad, posts will be sporadic and delayed. If the weather's good, they'll be non-existent.
A.B.
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"Future coming fast for NK tribe"
"Future coming fast for NK tribe"
"The Port Gamble S'Klallam Tribe's reservation, near the remote northern tip of the Kitsap Peninsula, will be one of the first areas to be fully connected to the county's ultra-fast Internet line. The U.S. Agriculture Department's rural development division gave the tribe $498,503 to join the reservation to the publicly owned fiber-optic backbone built by the Kitsap Public Utility District."
This is a good article that goes into a fair amount of detail as to how the S'Klallam Tribe will use the connection as well as their plans for last mile access for all of their member once this backbone is operational.
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Tri-Cities Broadband
Tri-Cities Broadband
Since it looks like a slow day so far for breaking news on community broadband issues, I'll do a little catching up with links to sites that have already been out there a while and worth a visit.
The cities of St. Charles, Geneva and Batavia, Illinois have attempted to implement a 3-city FTTH (fiber to the home) network, but were defeated in a recent referendum, due in part to a massive marketing and misinformation campaign waged by the local cable TV and telephone companies. Backers of the FTTH initiative developed an extensive web site which has a lot of useful links and resources for anyone interested in bringing a community-based broadband system to their town.
If you haven't visited their web site yet, you should.
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St. Joseph, MO city council to receive laptops, free broadband access
St. Joseph, MO city council to receive laptops, free broadband access
This has generated some controversy locally:
“Some things are nice to have. Some things we need to have … We don’t need no stinking laptops.”
The article doesn't really get into community broadband issues, but I enjoyed the quote ...
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"Federal grants give tribes on-ramp to Internet highway"
"Federal grants give tribes on-ramp to Internet highway"
Article briefly describes grants from the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Rural Utilities Division to Indian tribes in the Pacific Northwest.
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Large South African municipal utility may deploy powerline broadband city-wide
Large South African city may deploy powerline broadband city-wide
The city has been trialing been testing systems from 2 vendors (Ascom and Innovatec) for some time and will make a final decision on city-wide deployment at the end of the year. The system would use the power utility's existing fiber network as a backbone.
Complete article.
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Thursday, June 12, 2003
Optical Solutions wins Pennsylvania project
Optical Solutions wins Pennsylvania project
"Optical Solutions Inc., the leader in fiber-optic voice, video and data solutions for the last mile, today announced that Laurel Highland Telephone Company (LHTC) is launching a FiberPathR FTTP network over a 400 square mile area east of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania."
Light Reading news item.
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Wyoming cities mull $31 million FTTH system
Wyoming cities mull $31 million FTTH system
"A $31 million, publicly-owned fiber optic system proposed for Sweetwater County would provide the cities of Rock Springs and Green River a state-of-the-art telecommunications network, proponents of the proposal said during a meeting Monday night."
Complete article. (Link from Jim Baller at Baller Herbst Law Group)
Southwestern Wyoming Enhanced and Expanded Telecommunications system's web site
It appears that the feasibility consultants have already selected both the FTTH (fiber to the home) transport system vendor (Alloptic) and the prime contractor for design and construction (C-COR), so the project looks like it will be sole-sourced to these suppliers, if I'm reading the documents on the SWEETnet site correctly.
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Morganton, NC's municipal cable TV system to offer advanced video on demand
Morganton, NC's municipal cable TV system to offer advanced video on demand
"CoMPAS Cable, a municipal cable operator with 5,500 basic subscribers in Morganton, North Carolina, will offer VOD, SVOD and FOD to its customers beginning this fall."
Press release (information on Morganton's deployment is halfway down page.)
(Link from Jim Baller at Baller Herbst Law Group)
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"Municipal Wi-Fi: No More Free Ride"
"Municipal Wi-Fi: No More Free Ride"
"The towns of Elgin and Walla Walla in Eastern Oregon might as well serve as advertisements for the positive attributes of municipally-supported Wi-Fi. Long neglected by the telco's who refused to offer high speed broadband to such sparsely populated communities, today, thanks to wireless technology, these communities have the chance to bridge a digital divide that's left them feeling isolated and marginalized."
"If we don't have broadband, that's going to be the death knell of us ... It's not a matter of can we do it, but when and how."
The article goes on to note that "municipalities that own their own fiber can most cost-effectively deploy wireless."
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Kitsap Public Utility District may develop telecommuting centers in conjunction with its' fiber optic network
Kitsap Public Utility District may develop telecommuting centers in conjunction with its' fiber optic network
"The Boeing Co. has agreed to participate in a study that is looking into creating specialized sites on the Kitsap Peninsula from which employees could telecommute to their jobs on the opposite side of Puget Sound."
"'You don't need to maintain that real estate [referring to Boeing's office space], and you can get a lot better productivity out of your workers if you can have them working near or at home,' said Poulsbo City Councilman Ed Stern, who also cited the potential benefits of such facilities to the region's transportation problems.'"
Kitsap PUD is building a fiber optic network across its' service area for both internal utility communications and comunity development.
Article.
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$300,000 federal grant will cover broadband access, 10 computers for village of Angoon, Alaska
$300,000 federal grant will cover broadband access, 10 computers for village of Angoon, Alaska
"'The purpose is just to provide some connection with the rest of the world to Angoon. It's one of the few sites in Southeast [Alaska] that doesn't have broadband connection,' said Corinne Garza, chief of business operations for the Tlingit-Haida Central Council."
Article.
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"The Wireless LANscape"
"The Wireless LANscape"
Good overview of the three IEEE 802.11 wireless networking standards.
PC magazine article.
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UTOPIA presents feasibility study to Cedar Hills for FTTH network
UTOPIA presents feasibility study to Cedar Hills for FTTH network
Cedar Hills is one of almost 20 Utah communities considering jointly building city-wide FTTH (fiber to the home) systems as part of the UTOPIA project.
Article.
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"Beyond WiFi: Airwaves used in creative, lucrative — and unregulated — ways"
"Beyond WiFi: Airwaves used in creative, lucrative — and unregulated — ways"
Interesting overview of how unregulated radio spectrum is used in the U.S.
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Wednesday, June 11, 2003
A new type of carrier emerges to provide fiber backhaul for broadband wireless networks
A new type of carrier emerges to provide fiber backhaul for broadband wireless networks
"As a "lit" services provider, C2C owns and operates "lit," or operational, backhaul fiber that telecommunications carriers can load equipment onto to activate their networks."
RCR Wireless News report on C2C's marketing strategy.
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Michigan school district saves $400,000 annually with new phone system, fiber network
Michigan school district saves $400,000 annually with new phone system, fiber network
"By using the district-owned fiber optic network, the district will save money normally used by leasing telephone lines."
Brief report about halfway into the daily roundup of local news.
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Grant County Public Utility District considering rate hike on FTTH network
Grant County Public Utility District considering rate hike on FTTH network
"The biggest change in the proposed rate structure, fiber business manager Coe Hutchison said, is increasing the charge to service providers from $3 per month to $5 per month for each customer buying Internet service. Hutchison said the upping of that rate is an effort to help the PUD recover its costs, which it could not do under the current plan."
Grant County PUD does not sell FTTH (fiber to the home) service directly to customers but rather sells network capacity to local Internet service providers that serve local customers.
Complete article.
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Japan Times article on increasing FTTH use in Japan
Japan Times article on increasing FTTH use in Japan
In the U.S., some web sites and publications question whether FTTH (fiber to the home) is for real. Meanwhile, in Japan, publications are publishing comparisons of different carriers' FTTH service plans. (Here's one article in English from the Japan Times.)
Clearly Tokyo Electric (a large power utility and FTTH provider), NTT (Japan's incumbent telco) and Japan's current 347,000 FTTH subscribers have not gotten the word from naysayers in the U.S. that FTTH is just dream. The rate of growth in FTTH subscribers in Japan is over twice that of DSL users.
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NZ farmers wary of Telecom's broadband advances
NZ farmers wary of Telecom's broadband advances
The New Zealand government has become a world leader in initiatives to bring broadband access to rural areas in part because Telecom, the incumbent, has been criticized as doing an awful job of providing even quiet POTS lines to support 56k modems. Now Telecom is belatedly showing some interest in NZ's farmers (who rank among the world's wealthiest, most efficient and tech-savviest food producers.)
This New Zealand Herald article does a good job of describing the political issues and also gives a picture of how sophisticated farmers need and use technology.
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"Electric Companies Plug Homes Into the Internet"
"Electric Companies Plug Homes Into the Internet"
"The first world conference of electric companies, equipment makers and others gathered for a day this week in efforts to make the Internet even more ubiquitous by channeling it through power lines into homes."
Complete story.
(Link from Jim Baller at Baller Herbst Law Group)
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"OFS prepares to layoff more of workforce "
"OFS prepares to layoff more of workforce"
"Optical fiber maker OFS said it will carry out another round of downsizing. The company blamed the layoffs on weak demand in the fiber optic cable market."
Article.
By contrast, sources have told me Corning's fiber and cable business were no longer laying off and Corning has publicly announced earlier this year that the company expects to return to profitablility next quarter (due mainly to its' non-fiber businesses such as glass for LCD displays).
I wonder whether these further layoffs at OFS reflect new weakness in fiber cable (I doubt it) or a loss of market share by OFS. Perhaps they just did not do as much drastic job-cutting earlier as Corning did.
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Hammond, IN recruiting jobs to downtown with municipal fiber network
Hammond, IN recruiting jobs to downtown with municipal fiber network
"Terry said the city’s fiber optic network will be expanded, eventually covering the entire downtown area. Since the city put in the original fiber optic network two years ago, it has signed more than 22 leases to bring businesses to the downtown area, Terry said."
Complete article.
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Tuesday, June 10, 2003
Overview of rural broadband in New Zealand
Overview of rural broadband in New Zealand
Article
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"Passave Announces Availability of Low Cost FTTH Chips"
"Passave Announces Availability of Low Cost FTTH Chips"
"Passave Technologies, a provider of low-cost, high performance chipsets for FTTH and Ethernet, today announced a line of products suitable for deployment in Gigabit Ethernet PON Fiber to the Home ONUs."
Press release.
Intel is one of the investors in Passave, an Israeli company.
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Huntsville, AL installing fiber-linked intelligent traffic system
Huntsville, AL installing fiber-linked intelligent traffic system
"Dan Sanders, traffic engineer for the city of Huntsville, said Monday the technology will beef up timing and sensoring devices that trip traffic signals. The idea, he said, is to give traffic managers an ability to better control the flow of traffic based on conditions. Video cameras placed at strategic locations would be connected by fiber-optic cables to signal boxes and a central video monitoring room. There, engineers could reprogram signal lights, if needed, to alleviate a traffic jam, clear an intersection for emergency response vehicles, or perhaps reverse lanes for traffic to a major event such as a parade, ball game or the Big Spring Jam. "
Complete article.
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"BWE Targets Homeowner Associations to Bring Broadband Internet Services to Residential Customers"
"BWE Targets Homeowner Associations to Bring Broadband Internet Services to Residential Customers"
An interesting concept.
Press release.
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Access to fast Internet jumps by 50 percent in Iowa rural communities
Access to fast Internet jumps by 50 percent in Iowa rural communities
"The number of Iowa residents with access to high-speed Internet service continues to increase, jumping by nearly 50 percent in the rural communities of the state in just over a year, according to a report from the Iowa Utilities Board ..."
"With the high-speed links, she said, 'it doesn't matter where the information is transferred and processed, so communities in rural Iowa can be considered as potential sites for advanced technology firms '..."
Complete article.
Iowa has been a hot bed of community-based broadband intitiatives, many of them led by the local municipal or cooperative power utility. It's probably one of the 5 top states in the U.S. when it comes to commitment to broadband access in rural areas.
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Interview with the head of Bell Labs
Interview with the head of Bell Labs
"What else is hot at Bell Labs these days?"
"What's very exciting is the triple-play services--TV, phone and data. How do you leverage services that integrate all those capabilities into one? And not only compressed video, but also high-definition TV--things like that. When it comes to entertainment, people have said quite clearly that they are willing to spend the extra buck to get high-quality video. So delivering that on fiber is probably going to be a demanding application, but one which fiber can easily do."
"Can the copper networks now used by telephone companies do that?"
"No."
Complete interview.
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Squaxin Island Tribe wins tech grant
Squaxin Island Tribe wins tech grant
"The $735,250 Rural Utilities Service Broadband Program grant will pay Hood Canal Communications to provide the more than 100 tribal homes with high-speed Internet, cable TV and telephone access."
Full article.
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Two interesting Light Reading message board threads on FTTH
Two interesting Light Reading message board threads on FTTH
As with any message board discussion, some messages are interesting, others less than thoughtful:
"RBOCs Hungry for Fiber"
"SuperComm Shocker"
The second thread started in response to a somewhat unprofessional column by a Light Reading staffer taking swipes at the many FTTH vendors that did not bother to show up at SuperComm this year, insinuating that they were virtually broke. My own response (which took some heat) was that this said more about how expensive and unproductive SuperComm has become for so many vendors. The real business is being done in smaller, more focused settings like the APPA Community Broadband Conference Ron Lunt is organizing again, this year in Kansas City.
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Will Asia be the next broadband access battleground?
Will Asia be the next broadband access battleground?
Interesting quotes from an article in EE Times that put the U.S. broadband scene in perspective:
"'SBC', Aalaei said, 'is bitching and moaning that they can't make money at $40 a month, and these guys are doing it at $10.'"
"the U.S. RBOCs are charging DSL customers more than $16 to $17 per line to use copper 'that was written off three years after Graham Bell died.'"
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Monday, June 09, 2003
Two wireless broadband articles worth reading:
Two wireless broadband articles worth reading:
"FCC Hopes To Fuel Wireless Competition"
"Growth seen in Wi-Fi Internet access -- firms roll out transmitters, but profit elusive"
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FTTH vendor Wave7 Optics granted RUS acceptance status
FTTH vendor Wave7 Optics granted RUS acceptance status
"Wave7 Optics today announced that its Last Mile Link (LML) fiber-to-the-home network system has gained 'Acceptance' from the Rural Utilities Service (RUS), an agency of the United States Department of Agriculture. All network elements of the LML product family now appear on the RUS List of Materials Acceptable for Use on Telecommunications Systems of RUS Borrowers under 'Access equipment.'"
Lightwave news item.
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Alcatel announces FTTH win in Canada
Alcatel announces FTTH win in Canada
Press release.
Lightwave article
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Extending Kitsap PUD's fiber network to Bainbridge Island
Extending Kitsap PUD's fiber network to Bainbridge Island
Many islanders agree it's a good idea but they're debating whether they can legally use school district funds to partially pay for the extension to Kitsap Public Utility District's fiber system. (The school district is expected to be the heaviest user.)
Complete article.
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Poll of Lightwave readers reveals skepticism about Bells' fiber plans
Poll of Lightwave readers reveals skepticism about Bells' fiber plans
An unscientific on-line poll of visitors to Lightwave's web site showed (as of the time of this posting) a majority were skeptical of the Bells' announcement that they would finally get serious about rolling out FTTH (fiber to the home):
"Are the RBOCs serious about pursuing fiber to the premises?"
"Yes -- and deployments will start as soon as next year": 14%
"Yes -- but deployments won't begin until 2005 at the earliest": 25%
"Maybe -- but only in a very limited fashion": 50%
"No -- it's just a smoke screen": 11%
Lightwave is a trade magazine for the fiber optics industry.
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Wireless ISP wants Indiana town to lease it access to all city ROWs and structures for $1/year
Wireless ISP wants Indiana town to lease it access to all city ROWs and structures for $1/year
"The board discussed a proposal from Indiana Data Center to use city-owned structures, facilities and right-of-ways for broadband towers and connection equipment. Indiana Data Center wants to establish broadband service in Columbia City. The firm already has an agreement with the city of Fort Wayne ... In return, the city would lease space on buildings rooftops, antenna towers, water towers and public right-of-ways for installation of Indiana Data Center's equipment at the sum of $1 per year."
They want free electric power from the city, too.
Article.
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Sunday, June 08, 2003
What the Bells said at SuperComm about FTTH
What the Bells said at SuperComm about FTTH
The PowerPoint presentations given by each of the 4 Bells at SuperComm are posted on the SuperComm site. There's also a copy on that same page of an economic analysis of FTTH done by TMNG Strategy; some of the cost numbers are interesting.
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Canadian government's "Smart Communities" web site
Canadian government's "Smart Communities" web site
"Welcome to the Smart Communities web site! This site acts as a clearing house of resources that helps support the creation of Smart Communities across Canada as well as providing information on related best practices, applications and technologies."
The Smart Communities web site has capsule descriptions of projects around Canada as well a number of other resources.
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