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Utah Cities To Provide High-Speed Net Access
Instarx writes "The New York Times reports that Salt Lake City and other Utah cities plan to install an ultrahigh-speed optical network as a public utility project starting next year. The network would provide internet access [for about $28 per month] in direct competition to slower commercial offerings. The network would be capable of delivering data over the Internet to homes and businesses at speeds 100 times faster than current commercial residential offerings. It would also offer digital television and telephone services through the Internet."
Clicky-clicky
The article points to the sluggish economy as a hindrance to this sort of deployment in Utah, as well as other municipalities, but I think it may actually help the project.
When you look at the vendors, their pricing has just dropped because they are hungry. So, you can get incredible pricing for the equipment, the electronics, the fiber, all the things you need. Because the economy's down, interest rates are down, so that's going to help financing.
And because they don't just have a free flow of cash in the telecom world, there are companies that are very interested because they don't have the capital riding on somebody else's network. You take that all together and the timing actually is pretty darn good.
As far as municipal involvement in this, the genie is out of the bottle in my opinion. Municipalities across the country are either going to do the retail or the wholesale, but they're going to do something. And they're not satisfied to just sit and wait when an incumbent or some private sector company decides that they're big enough and it's worth their while to come in to build the networks.
> upstream bandwidth
Upstream? Now that's just silly. Obviously, everyone only *downloads*, so uploading isn't an issue. A downloads from B, B downloads from C, and C downloads from A. It all works out in a beautiful Escher-esque way, each node feeding off of each other, downhill both ways...
NO! We can never have too much Capacity! This is obviously a really expensive project to undertake, and when you design something for the public with tax dollars you want it to last a LONG TIME. When do you think they'll get the millage passed to rebuild it for more capacity later.
Look how the Internet is growing, it's only a matter of time before multimedia content pushes the limits of even modern broadband setups. They are building capacity for the future, as well as for increased longterm demand.
Look at the rest of the industry, are you hard drives too fast, is your printer too fast, can you ever be too fast (besides playing old games and some emulators)?
From the article:
Jerry Fenn, the president of the Utah division of Qwest, the regional telephone company here that provides its own high-speed Internet access, said there were few uses yet for the network Utopia plans to deliver.
The speeds to be provided "are way more than what most consumers need in their home," Mr. Fenn said, adding, "Why provide a Rolls-Royce when a Chevrolet will do?"
This is exactly the line of thinking that prevents projects like this from implementation all accross the country. Just because "it's more than we need" right now does not mean it won't be down the road. It's the chicken and egg situation of the tech sector- no one will build it until there is a need, but there will not be a need unless it's there for people to develop uses on. Sort of ironic coming from a society which prides itself in gas gussling SUVs and exhorbitant homes.
Even though I live on the other side of the country, I hope this goes through, if not for the geeks of Utah, but for the hopes that municipal (read not controlled by draconian corporations) communications infrastructure can be rolled out in other places too.
I work for the Local Government in Lafayette, Louisiana and we've been rolling out fiber for years now all over the city... Businesses and residents can buy access through numerous resellers which all specialize in different things... Including one or two that specialize in delivering high-speed wireless access to your house. :)
Of course LARGE cities end up in the news for mentioning they'll be rolling out fiber someday now, while us smaller cities that have had a fiber network for a couple years never get mentioned.
Maxim: People cannot follow directions.
Increases in truth directly with the length of time spent explaining them
Ummm.... a small percentage of people here feel the need to pay some other company, most definatly NOT blockbuster, to edit out the "bad stuff" for them...
For the rest of us, there's nobody telling us that we can't go pick up a move that's rated "R" if we want to, or for that matter go to an adult video store with "XXX" videos, or get them on pay-per=view, or whatever... Sure, they've tried..but failed, since the majority of people figured out that it was a stupid idea to begin with.
So I can pretty confidently say that they won't try to force a filter onto people, we're not talking about China here!
I'll be the first to tell you that Utah has some oddities...especially when it comes to alcohol laws. But if you haven't lived here, (and I have, my entire 27 years), then forgive me for being blunt, but you don't have a clue.