Thanks to Becky LaPlant for passing this on to me an article/blog from Geoff Daily’s and helping me make the connection fromto the Iron Range Fibernet in Northern Minnesota…
Geoff Daily has written a heartening response to the speech FCC Commissioner Michael Copps gave at the YearlyKos convention. As Daily said, his response really stems from Copps’ claim that broadband in the US is ‘so poor that every citizen in the country ought to be outraged.’
I’ve heard so much debate from folks who either agree completely with Copps or from folks who are in complete disagreement and seem to think that the US is doing well and will emerge on top of the charts soon.
Daily’s response is much more balanced. We need work, he seems to say – but let’s not forget about the communities that are doing well. He specifically mentions UTOPIA and AT&T UVerse and Verizon FiOS communities.
I’d like to mention some of our own standout Minnesota communities:
Windom with its state of the art network
FiberNet, who is building (OK planning) a fiber network for 12 communities in Northern MN
I know that others are planning (either in their communities or in their businesses) to provide true high speed access soon. I like the idea of celebrating these efforts and learning from them.
Minnesota has other fiber to the home networks in place as well. Brainerd-Baxter by CTC, Grand Rapids by Paul Bunyan and MN’s first FTTH deployment in Morris.
Even with fiber to the premise, the standard service bundles shown on the provider web sites are comparable to those offered over copper. At least, a couple of the firms do offer pricing for higher speed connections.
I know one thing – if I owned or managed a FTTP network, I would be letting people both inside and outside the community know about it!
We just provided a service overview to a region providing them with wireless compared to fiber which will supply fill in services for that region as well as reach out to others within our range .This service is new technology and its infrastructure cost is much lower than incumbents cost .Thats the biggest battle in todays market is being able to provide services at a value which is good for everyone included .And with the new regulations in place for public safety wireless is asked for .
I’ll have to look into which areas of Minnesota are currently using wireless as well.
Yes ann would be interesting,a lot of areas are utilizing there assets to have wireless services placed using fiber as backhaul .This idea spreads services out at a faster rate and also deploys at a much lower cost enabling the same quality services reached using evdo .This ideology provides the regions with wireless mobility which is just another cost if just done with wired services.Also to educate some fiber is not needed at all sites because microwave backhaul can provide the same services without the need to place fiber all over.