AFL introduces a new product line of rugged indoor/outdoor breakout fiber optic cable. Designed to support cable terminations and connector configurations that require more strength and durability, these new cables feature a reinforced core configuration anchored by a robust, water-blocked sub-cable construction and stranded design. Additional strength elements allow for a wide variety of termination schemes. Either via direct termination with wedge-type retention systems common in industrial connectors or via a fan-out configuration, AFL's Indoor/Outdoor Rugged Breakout Cable provides a highly flexible solution that can be tailored to the application.
The cable family is available ranging from two to 12 optical channels and is qualified to the UL 1666 Riser standard. MSHA-rated cable is also available.
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2013年5月23日星期四
What is fiberscope
A fiberscope is a flexible fiber optic bundle with an eyepiece at one end, and a lens at the other. It is used for inspection work, often to examine small components in tightly packed equipment, when the inspector cannot easily access the part requiring inspection.
The lens is often a wide-angle lens, and the eyepiece is occasionally instead connected to a camera. Some fiberscopes use an additional fiber to carry light from an external source to illuminate the material being inspected, for clearer viewing.
All fiberscopes introduce a certain amount of image distortion; much of this is similar to the distortion of modern night vision equipment.
Quartz fiberscopes can reach lengths of up to about 90 m (300 ft).
Fiberscopes are used in medicine, machining, computer repair, espionage, locksmithing, safecracking, and computer forensics, among many other uses.
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Optical power meter Power measuring range
A typical OPM measures accurately under most conditions from about 0 dBm (1 milli Watt) to about -50 dBm (10 nano Watt), although the display range may be larger. Above 0 dBm is considered "high power", and specially adapted units may measure up to nearly + 30 dBm ( 1 Watt). Below -50 dBm is "low power", and specially adapted units may measure as low as -110 dBm. Irrespective of power meter specifications, testing below about -50 dBm tends to be sensitive to stray ambient light leaking into fibers or connectors.
So when testing at "low power", some sort of test range / linearity verification (easily done with attenuators) is advisable. At low power levels, optical signal measurements tend to become noisy, so meters may become very slow due to use of a significant amount of signal averaging.
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2013年5月20日星期一
VI Systems demo 25 Gbps over plastic optical fiber
VI Systems GmbH says that researchers at The Georgia Institute of Technology have demonstrated 25-Gbps error-free data transmission over 100 m of 80 μm-diameter core plastic optical fiber (POF) using one of VI Systems’ V40-850C 850-nm vertical cavity surface emitting lasers (VCSELs).
The coupling tolerances necessary to reach error-free transmission (defined as a bit error ratio <10-12) were as high as ~35 μm, according to VI Systems.
VI Systems says that plastic optical fibers are more typically used at data rates from 50 Mbps to 1 Gbps in automotive and home network applications using light near 650 nm. However, the company says that it will target the V40-850C VCSEL at proprietary optical links and active optical cables at 40 Gbps and 100 Gbps (likely using arrays), Fibre Channel at 14 Gbps and 28 Gbps, and Infiniband FDR (14 Gbps) and EDR (26 Gbps) applications.
The V40-850C VCSEL is available in a 250 x 250 μm single die size or as 1x4-channel or 1x12-channel chip array. Product samples are available now.
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Superior Essex introduces gel-free, loose tube fiber cable line
Superior Essex Inc., a wire and cable manufacturer, introduced its Dri-Lite all-dry, gel-free loose tube optical fiber cable product line. The new outside plant fiber cable design expands on the company’s existing Dri-Lite ribbon fiber cable product line.
These completely dry cables use space-saving 2.5-millimeter buffer tubes containing specially engineered, absorbent yarn that swell on contact with water and block water ingress. All-dry fiber cable designs are preferred by some customers because they are lower in weight than gel-filled cables and eliminate the need for gel removal in the installation process.
The Dri-Lite product line has been tested to and complies with Telcordia GR-20 and Rural Development Utilities Program (RDUP) specification 1753F-601 (PE-90) for fiber-optic cables. Superior Essex Dri-Lite products have been formally accepted by RDUP.
The Dri-Lite loose tube product line is available in fiber counts ranging from 12 to 288 in armored and all-dielectric cable configurations.
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Network booting
For general data storage on an already-booted computer, any type of generic network interface may be used to access iSCSI devices. However, a generic consumer-grade network interface is not able to boot a diskless computer from a remote iSCSI data source. Instead it is commonplace for a server to load its initial operating system from a TFTP server or local boot device, and then use iSCSI for data storage once booting from the local device has finished.
A separate DHCP server may be configured to assist interfaces equipped with network boot capability to be able to boot over iSCSI. In this case the network interface looks for a DHCP server offering a PXE or bootp boot image. This is used to kick off the iSCSI remote boot process, using the booting network interface's MAC address to direct the computer to the correct iSCSI boot target.
Specialized iSCSI interfaces are available with built-in BIOS functionality that allows the interface to be preassigned to an iSCSI target, and be able to boot from it without additional help from a boot server, thereby reducing the network configuration complexity.
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2013年5月16日星期四
Submarine Cable System Failure and Causes
Summary: What are susceptible to submarine cable fault? Cause of these failures are the reasons? Submarine cable failures easily, there are four: short-circuit fault, leakage faults, open circuit failure and fiber failure.
Tags: fiber optic submarine cable system failure repairAugust of this large-scale network failure, not only so that we know Morakot also learned submarine cable, the transmission equipment and a little strange that we are closely related. What are susceptible to submarine cable fault? Cause of these failures are the reasons?
Edited more than a collection of information, one by one to answer your questions.
First, the submarine cable failures easily, there are four: short circuit, leakage faults, open circuit failure and fiber failure.
Secondly, the reason for these failures, there are two, one is external influences, such as earthquakes, typhoons, fishing operations, the other one is the sea of equipment failure, the main bifurcation and repeaters and other devices fail. Relatively well-known history of failure are derived from external influences, and because this impact range, inevitably, after the repair work is subject to environmental conditions, speed of recovery is relatively slow, 06 at the end of earthquake rupture repair work on the submarine cable for more than a month's time.
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Jersey Telecom launches gigabit broadband
Jersey Telecom has equipped the Castle Quay development on the Isle of Jersey's St. Helier Waterfront with 1-Gbps services via fiber to the home (FTTH) on a trial basis. The FTTH trial is part of the Gigabit Isles initiative under the JT Group's five-year strategy.
The new 1-Gbps FTTH broadband service is 50X faster than the 20 Mbps services that Jersey Telecom has just launched. The 20-Mbps services will be available to more than 25% of Island households by the end of this year.
Launching our 1-Gbps fiber-optic broadband connection at Castle Quay is a real landmark both for the JT Group and for Jersey as a whole, says Graeme Millar, CEO of JT Group. It means the world's fastest broadband speed, with the possible exception only of Japan, is now available to residents of this development. Broadband is already changing the way we live our lives, and I think that change is only likely to become more significant in the future. Making gigabit speeds available to more and more customers is a key part of our strategy in order to allow the Island to fully benefit from all the internet has to offer.
Over the next 5 years, Jersey Telecom says it plans to replace its copper cable network with fiber, at a likely cost of around ￡40 million.
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Overhead requirements of laying fiber optic cable
1) overhead cable laying cable in the ground, the use of hooks hanging, mountain or steep slopes laying fiber optic cable,The laying of fiber optic cable using the banding method. Cable connector should be selected lever position is easy to maintain a straight line, reserved for cable useBracket to the pole on the reserve.
2) overhead cable at intervals of 3-5 bar road gear lever retractable requirements for U-turn, set aside about 15 per 1 kmMeters.
3) onto the overhead (walls) with a galvanized steel cable protected with a fire clay nozzle clogging.
4) overhead cable around every four lever and cross-road, crossing, cross suspension bridges should be special sections of fiber optic cableWarning signs.
5) air line and power line hanging cross should be added to protect the trigeminal protection tube, each end of the elongation of not less than 1Meters.
6) near the pole pull side of the road light bar should be set packet length of 2 meters.
7) To prevent the hanging line induced current assault, each at the poles and hanging wire electrical cable required to connect, the pullAlignment should be installed cable-ground, requiring the direct use of lining hanging loop line connecting the terminal directly to ground.
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2013年5月13日星期一
Tech and Biotech: 5Nines featured in Popular Science mag
Madison information technology company 5Nines and its vice president, Anton Kapela, are featured in an article in the April 2012 issue of Popular Science magazine.
The article debunks the idea that an Internet-in-a-suitcasekit of software and wireless routers could be smuggled into a country where there's repression and let rebels set up their own computer network without having to tap into government infrastructure. Instead, the article points to 5Nines' system as a more plausible alternative.
5Nines' 3,000-square-foot data center hosts websites and applications for area businesses. The company also offers Internet service, using rooftop devices the size of a home satellite dish combined with existing fiber-optic and other connections.
We can build a network without having to go to village boards to get zoning approvals,Kapela said, in an interview.
5Nines also designed and hosted – at no charge – the so-called recall webcam.The silent, live, high-definition video feed showed the Wisconsin Government Accountability Board as it reviewed more than 309,000 pages of recall petitions, from January 17 to March 22.
It was something that we pulled together on very short notice and they were extremely accommodating,GAB spokesman Reid Magney said.
The recall webcam drew 58,000 views just in the first three days, and attracted publicity around the U.S.
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FTTLA
FTTLA is the acronym of the English term Fiber To The Last Amplifier. The network cables being able to use several amplifiers, the FTTLA aims at replacing the coaxial cable to the last amplifier (towards the subscriber) by optical fibre. It acts as a new technology aiming at re-using the network cables existing in particular on the final part while installing of optical fibre more closer to the subscriber while using the coaxial cable of the networks cables for the last mile or last meters connected with the subscriber.
Fiber to the last amplifier (FttLA) node is an efficient tool to deploy fibre deeper into the CATV network architecture and add most desirable aspects of scalability (performance and reliability) which are necessary when new services (i.e. triple play, video on demand, gaming) are introduced.
FTTLA is a technology which assists hybrid fiber-coaxial CATV networks to provide to their customers more bandwidth. Using a replacement of all coaxial active equipments by nodes (optical receiver) with high power output (up to 117 dBuV). The coaxial is maintained from the node to the customer without any active equipment in between.
From the optical sender to the node, it uses fibre which is split by 4 or by 8 depending on the distance and on the output power of the optical sender (from 6 to 16 dBm).
Also, IM2, IM3 and C/N are modified for a better network and it also has other benefits such as power saving in the network, as the power consumption is lower than a normal HFC network (up to 40%).
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For Union Pacific, Life is Good
Union Pacific is one of the companies cited in Scott Thurm's survey of big U.S. companies, For Big Companies, Life is Good, that have not only recovered from the Great Recession, but have largely seen revenues and profits surpass those of 2007. In an exclusive interview, Union Pacific CIO Lynden Tennison told us the company is increasing its use of predictive analytics, which have already helped slash train derailments.
Tennison says he continues to focus on things that will impact core business problems.Those things include continuing to find ways to sell the company's intellectual property, created by IT, to other companies. Because the railroad needed to supplement existing communications infrastructure to ensure it could monitor the condition of its rail cars and tracks even in remote locales the company owns more than 1,700 radio towers and its own fiber optic network. I have a lot of dark fiber,says Tennison. He says the company earns between $10 and $20 million per year selling right of way access to that infrastructure.
He's also sold the railroad's proprietary crew management software to 6 of the 7 North American railroads, he said.
Now, the company is developing 3D games that simulate various tasks that maintenance crew have to perform for training purposes. We drive efficiency and safety through these simulators,Tennison said. He added the company will sell this technology to other companies as well.
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2013年5月5日星期日
Nonlinear Characteristics
Nonlinear characteristics include self-phase modulation (SPM), cross-phase modulation (XPM), four-wave mixing (FWM), stimulated Raman scattering (SRS), and stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS).
Self-Phase ModulationPhase modulation of an optical signal by itself is known as self-phase modulation (SPM). SPM is primarily due to the self-modulation of the pulses. Generally, SPM occurs in single-wavelength systems. At high bit rates, however, SPM tends to cancel dispersion. SPM increases with high signal power levels. In fiber plant design, a strong input signal helps overcome linear attenuation and dispersion losses. However, consideration must be given to receiver saturation and to nonlinear effects such as SPM, which occurs with high signal levels. SPM results in phase shift and a nonlinear pulse spread. As the pulses spread, they tend to overlap and are no longer distinguishable by the receiver. The acceptable norm in system design to counter the SPM effect is to take into account a power penalty that can be assumed equal to the negative effect posed by XPM. A 0.5-dB power margin is typically reserved to account for the effects of SPM at high bit rates and power levels.
Cross-Phase ModulationCross-phase modulation (XPM) is a nonlinear effect that limits system performance in wavelength-division multiplexed (WDM) systems. XPM is the phase modulation of a signal caused by an adjacent signal within the same fiber. XPM is related to the combination (dispersion/effective area). CPM results from the different carrier frequencies of independent channels, including the associated phase shifts on one another. The induced phase shift is due to the walkover effect, whereby two pulses at different bit rates or with different group velocities walk across each other. As a result, the slower pulse sees the walkover and induces a phase shift. The total phase shift depends on the net power of all the channels and on the bit output of the channels. Maximum phase shift is produced when bits belonging to high-powered adjacent channels walk across each other.
XPM can be mitigated by carefully selecting unequal bit rates for adjacent WDM channels. XPM, in particular, is severe in long-haul WDM networks, and the acceptable norm in system design to counter this effect is to take into account a power penalty that can be assumed equal to the negative effect posed by XPM. A 0.5-dB power margin is typically reserved to account for the effects of XPM in WDM fiber systems.
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Opnext High Speed Technology Leadership Highlighted in OFC/NFOEC 2012
Opnext, Inc. (NASDAQ: OPXT) is a global leader in high speed optical technology, will be reinforcing its technology leadership through its participation in the Optical Fiber Communication Conference and Exposition and the National Fiber Optic Engineers Conference (OFC/NFOEC) being held March 6th through the 8th in Los Angeles, CaliforniaOpnext OFC/NFOEC 2012 demonstrations include the following:
Hitachi Central Research Labs (CRL) will join the Opnext booth to demonstrate a 1310nm LISEL (Lens-integrated Surface-emitting DFB Laser) array operating at 25-40Gbps, which was developed under management of PETRA (Photonics Electronics Technology Research Association) supported by NEDO (New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization). LISEL technology is predicted by Hitachi, Ltd. to be an alternative for VCSEL in the future development of 40Gbps and 100Gbps client side, ultra small transceiver technology for optical backplane and interconnects that support data center applications.Opnext will demonstrate its next-generation 100Gbps coherent flexible line cards in a display that includes the OTS-100MXP (10x 10Gbps Muxponder) and OTS-100TXP (1x 100Gbps Transponder) line cards. The 100Gbps coherent transponders from Opnext include soft decision FEC and are designed to provide 9.6Tbps capacity per fiber up to a distance of 2,000km between regeneration points.Expanding the Company's robust 40Gbps product family, Opnext will demonstrate its 40Gbps technology in a QSFP+ (quad small form factor pluggable plus) module showing multi-rate functionality. The QSFP+ 40GBASE-LR4 module uses 4x10Gbps CWDM integrated optics to transmit 40GbE traffic over a distance of 10km on single mode fiber to support data center and enterprise applications.Opnext's 10Gbps XFP tunable transceiver demonstration will show 80km transmission with full C-Band at 50GHz channel spacing. This demonstration will illustrate the ability to perform automatic wavelength tuning designed to maintain stable wavelength control while supporting a wavelength range of 1529nm to 1567nm.Opnext will provide the industry's first interoperability demonstration between a 1550nm wavelength CFP module and a 1310nm wavelength module at 40Gbps using the Opnext 40GBASE-FR.The demonstration will be supported by JDSU's ONT-40/100G test solutions, the industry's reference for 40/43G SDH/SONET/OTN and Ethernet testing.
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Mike Antonovich takes part in ScheduALL’s executive board
Broadcast industry veteran Mike Antonovich has taken part in the Executive Board at ScheduALL. ScheduALL is the leading global provider of Enterprise Resource Management (ERM) software for the media, broadcast and transmission industries. The addition of Antonovich builds on ScheduALL's continued investment in deep industry expertise across an industry in transition.
Antonovich, with more than 30 years of broadcast, satellite and fiber optic service experience has held broadcast operations positions at ESPN and Group W Satellite, global sales and marketing leadership positions at PanAmSat as well as CEO experience at The Space Connection (the satellite industry's leading space segment reseller) and at Genesis Networks (a global 70-city managed video service fiber network). Antonovich played an essential role in the businesses growth and eventual sale of Genesis to Global Crossing in 2011. He presently is Vice President of Sales and Marketing at Roberts Communications Network, a leading provider of managed satellite and terrestrial network solutions.
I am excited to join ScheduALL's Executive Board. I am very familiar with the unique capabilities the software provides and I have really seen the company mature over the past several years, Antonovich said. ScheduALL is uniquely addressing sizeable industry challenges in bold new ways. ScheduALL has evolved into a de facto industry standard, and I look forward to being a part of their many exceptional innovations yet to come.In his current role, Antonovich leads sales efforts into the broadcast and media marketplace for Roberts Communications Network which owns and operates more than 110 uplinks, leases more than 12 satellite transponders, operates more than 250 MPEG-4 encoders and manages a global MPLS network. It also is an industry leader in the provision of streaming media and digital signage services and has one of the industry's most advanced hybrid satellite and terrestrial networks.
Mike is a trusted friend and highly respected business leader across broadcast, satellite and telecommunications industries. We are honored to have him join our Executive Board, Says Joel Ledlow, CEO at ScheduALL. His passion and familiarity with where the industry is heading will help us examine new of areas where we can better serve our client community.
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2013年5月2日星期四
Positioned to grasp for broadband power line communication end edge
With the development of smart grid, "old" power line communication technology has fundamentally changed. However, broadband power line communication on the merits of the industry remains fierce battle. Advocates of this technology to identify the various questionable in itself. In this way can the smart grid construction in new development.
Technology to locate: grasp the "terminal benefits"
Power Line Communication technology has been developed in the West nearly half a century, and continues to technological innovation.
For the open online world, is to present a wide range of communications technology, words, different communication technologies have different orientation and field of application. If simply a new generation of broadband powerline communications and optical fiber communication technology than the former in the transmission rate and so naturally there is a gap. However, the power line as the most extensive network coverage, is a convenient, flexible, low cost way to communicate, to maximize the advantages of communication at the end.
In recent years, the Korean government pushing the development of power line communication, be regarded as the optimal way home interior wiring, widely used in security alarms, emergency relief and other fields. In the smart grid construction, power line communication and give full play to its overall communications systems in the application of benefits, such as communication and fiber composite applications, the formation of complementary strengths, to save costs, conserve resources to resolve the family, the end user's communication the problem.
Historical role: full participation in the construction of smart grid
From traditional voice calls, broadband access, to information collection is now widely used in electricity, power fiber to the home construction, power line communication technology at different times to play a different role in history, its applications are no longer limited to basic communication services, but with the smart grid development expand.
Broadband power line communication technology in the construction of fiber to the home with electricity end consumption play an important supporting role. The use of electric line appliances, equipment, connection and save repetition brings fiber directly home construction and a larger investment.
At the same time, there is no condition for laying the fiber the old district, power lines and can play its flexible and convenient features, to achieve an effective transfer of information.
In addition, the technology is still widely used in information collection power, good service in the power of marketing automation and intelligent. Electricity to the residents of the home through the information collection and analysis to help users find the home of "big power", to develop scientific habits of consumption.
Applications: from urban to rural areas
Power Line Communication in rural areas has broad application prospects. The use of rural coverage of nearly 100% of existing power lines, just be a simple transformation, the basis of communication resources without re-building, power lines needed for rural users of broadband Internet access, voice calls and other communications needs.
As early as 2004, FibrLINK company has already begun powerline communications services in rural areas, in Fuping County, Hebei village with a large channel units for long-distance power line communication between the villages of tests to achieve a remote mountain village and the outside call dreams, but also planted the seeds of the triple play, broadband power line communications in rural areas has accumulated experience in application. State Grid Corporation of rural power grids with the depth, power line communications in rural areas is bound to accomplish much.
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Sydney to Melbourne cable becomes 50 years old
Communications Minister Stephen Conroy has highlighted the fact that yesterday, April 9, marked the 50th anniversary of the landmark opening of the coaxial telecommunications cable between Sydney and Melbourne, delivering a new era in telecommunications in Australia. Conroy has additionally likened the project's vision to that of the National Broadband Network.
The cable was officially declared open when the then Prime Minister, Sir Robert Menzies, made an interstate direct dial call on April 9 in 1962. The coaxial cable enabled a caller to dial numbers at exchanges on the other end of the trunk lines, rather than needing an operator to make the connection. Though fibre-optic cable has largely replaced coaxial cables in Australia's backhaul network, including the Sydney-Melbourne link, coaxial cables are still used to connect some customers to the exchange.
Conroy paid tribute to the men and women who worked on the project 50 years ago to make this crucial link in Australia's telecommunications infrastructure a reality. A media release from the Senator's office observed that in 1957, when the telephone system was becoming overloaded, the Government recognised the need for new infrastructure. The options considered at the time included radio transmission, but in the end it was decided to install a six-tube coaxial cable taking into account future needs.
The coaxial cable infrastructure scored over other options because it supported the introduction of subscriber trunk dialling between cities and could transmit television signals as well. Senator Conroy stated: It really was revolutionary technology; it took five years to build and exemplified a time when both sides of politics had the vision to plan for the future when it came to building the infrastructure our nation needs.
Senator Conroy noted with regret that the far-sighted approach Sir Robert Menzies had adopted to build infrastructure for the next fifty years has presently been replaced by a Liberal National Party that wants, Conroy claimed, to say ‘no' not just to Labor's flagship National Broadband Network (NBN), but also to the prosperity and economic opportunities of the future that Labor claims will come with it. Senator Conroy said: It's time for the Opposition to recognise that cobbled together copper isn't going to meet the Australian economy's need for broadband over the next ten, twenty, thirty years, and embrace the NBN.
Looking back in time, the coaxial telecommunications cable supported the simultaneous live broadcast of the 5th Test of the 1962-63 Ashes series to Sydney, Canberra and Melbourne a major achievement in Australian television history. In 1965, the cable was also used for interstate live split-screen link-ups between Graham Kennedy's In Melbourne Tonight and Don Lane's Sydney Tonight.
Information on the use of the cable by ABC for television broadcast reveals that it was in 1967 that the first Australian TV soap, ‘Bellbird', was premiered by the company. The first colour news bulletin was read by Jim Dibble on March 1, 1975 on ABC. By 1985, the launch of Aussat enabled ABC programs to be broadcast to remote parts of Australia.
According to Telstra's telecommunications history timeline, following the invention of the telephone in 1876 by Alexander Graham Bell, several long-distance transmission experiments were successfully conducted in Australia two years later in 1878, at distances of up to 400 km. By 1883, exchanges were set up in Adelaide and Hobart; the Perth exchange opened in 1887. In August 1964, again under Prime Minister Robert Menzies, Australia became part of the International Telecommunications Satellite Consortium (INTELSAT) which was established to develop a global system of commercial satellite links.
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2013年5月1日星期三
Be wary of officials bringing broadband
As Vermont works toward universal broadband, technical and political questions stand in the way of the promise of fast, reliable service to all corners of the state. On the technical level, the main issues are speed and which technology is deployed to deliver the service. The statutory minimum for broadband speed was outdated as soon as it was adopted. It is inadequate for most families and entrepreneurs. On the political level, the issue is that different state entities with different missions are working at cross-purposes to one another.
The Legislature and governor established the Department of Public Service to represent consumers’ interest in utility matters and the Public Service Board to adjudicate contested utility cases when called upon. It also created the Vermont Telecom Authority to promote the establishment of universal broadband and to channel capital resources to build the telecommunications infrastructure. Gov. Shumlin established Connect Vermont to serve as his administration’s broadband spokesperson and to be the marketing guru to pull it all together. Add to this bubbling cauldron out-of-state corporate Internet providers who are locked in competition with each other for dominant market share.
We might be forgiven for expecting that Shumlin administration appointees would be working in sync with each other to achieve the greatest possible broadband coverage at the least cost. We might be forgiven, too, for expecting that taxpayer dollars would be allocated as effectively as possible. Unfortunately, neither of these expectations are being fulfilled.
The biggest problem at present is the settlement of the FairPoint bankruptcy that was negotiated by the Department of Public Service and approved by the Public Service Board last February. Several years ago, FairPoint Communications bought Verizon’s landlines. Initially it provided deplorable customer service and was fined $6.6 million in Vermont.
The recent settlement allows FairPoint to drawn down the $6.6 million in order to expand its DSL customer base, effectively rewarding it for its prior bad performance. True, this DSL expansion is proposed to go into communities that are currently unserved by broadband and DSL is far superior to dial-up, but FairPoint’s Internet service is delivered over copper wire, much of which is old and deteriorating. Speed is limited by the quality of the copper, the distance to the subscriber from the switching hub and the age of the switches themselves.
Because of this, while promoting speeds up to some big number, bandwidth from FairPoint in the more rural communities is severely limited. And as bandwidth requirements for Internet apps increase, the more inadequate DSL will become. In truth, DSL from Fairpoint is soon to be obsolete.
To add insult to injury, what DPS and the PSB have done is to allow FairPoint to use its penalty money to cherry-pick where it wants to go. And as a further insult, the Vermont Telecom Authority is facilitating this travesty by effectively making many so-called target areas off limits to all but FairPoint. Connect Vermont is proclaiming that this is a great idea.
The result? FairPoint has deliberately proposed to push into the very same towns where ECFiber was intending to expand with far superior fiber-optic phone and Internet and at lower cost. ECFiber is a municipally owned and subscriber-funded corporation dedicated to providing fiber-optic Internet to the last mile in each of its member towns. Its proposal would cost $4,300 in public money per location vs. $7,550 per location for FairPoint. Quite a difference!
The DPS FairPoint settlement meets the narrow definitions of the bankruptcy docket, but fails to deliver genuine bandwidth and fails to make efficient and effective use either of taxpayer money or the $6.6 million that FairPoint was fined. ECFiber’s proposal should be allowed to go forward and FairPoint should instead build in other unserved communities where there is no other proposal on the table. It is unfortunate that if FairPoint does extend DSL to those communities that can be better served by higher quality broadband, homes and businesses there will be saddled with inadequate Internet for years to come.
Beyond that, this is no way to attract young families and entrepreneurs to put down roots in rural Vermont. Is there no one in a position of leadership willing to balance public need with better use of public money and clean up this mess? We should expect nothing less.
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