OK I’m here in St Cloud at the Blandin Broadband conference. Lots of great folks are already here. We’re here for the Pre-Conference Event and the first speakers have kindly allowed us to post their presentations online.

Here’s the official description of the presentations from the program:

David Russell of Calix and Jim Farstad of rClient will provide attendees with a quick update of the new technologies and deployment strategies that are shaping the technology world. Dave Russell will cover the wired world covering wired infrastructures – their capabilities and limitations – that includes Fiber to the Home, Fiber to the Node, DOCSIS 3,0 and other innovations. Jim Farstad will focus on wireless technologies, including wi-fi, wi-max and cellular wireless. It will be a great start to the afternoon.

And here are my quick notes and their presentations:

First: David Russell from Calix
(I have to admit that I walked in halfway.) David talked about fiber (FTTH & FTTP). VPON is an older standard of fiber; GPON is a newer standard. (I meant to research that – thanks David for the info!)

Costs to deploy FFTP service to new home – $1000-1100. Cost to provide service to existing home $1500.

Second: Jim Farstad from rClient
Jim talked about wireless: WiFi & WiMAX and how one of the real beauties of wireless is the mobility aspect. One issue is that the branding of WiMAX came before the standard was complete so there have been some less than successful false starts – but the new standards are getting there and WiMAX has emerged as a backbone technology.

One thing to remember when planning is that you have to stop and ask why. Why do you want broadband? It’s not enough to want broadband for broadband sake. Once you have a purpose you will have an easier time choosing the technology.

Minneapolis Update:
Needed a mobile solution for public safety and to let city employees work in the field.
Streamline city services
Digital inclusion and economic development
Community portals
— in deployment they found that the first 4 deployments got incrementally better but that 5 was the charm so they re-deployed the first 4 and had a good solution for the next round of deployements.

Cost to deploy $600-850 per home.