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Oregon Fiber for Google

Google is planning a new tech center in The Dalles, Oregon (pop. 12,000). The availability of fiber played a big role in attracting Google — municipally-built fiber.

The small Oregon community, in the picturesque Columbia River Gorge, is connected to NOANET (Northwest Open Access Network), a private cooperative that operates a statewide telecommunications network linking schools, hospitals, government agencies and businesses.

A state-wide fiber network, using seven SONET rings, provides redundancy thoughout the state and was constructed with guidence from the Oregon Economic Development office a few years ago. The east side of the state is managed by the Eastern Oregon Telecommunications Consortium [Oops, I see they're linking to my Oregon Telecommunications Atlas which is no longer on-line].

Google will use a city-built fiber network, the Q-Life fiber network, a 17-mile fiber optic loop that extends through the city of The Dalles. The municipal network was a collaborative effort by three public entities, Northern Wasco County People’s Utility District, Wasco County and the City of The Dalles.

The Bonneville Power Administration built a 2,400 mile fiber network for sub-station monitoring. But the BPA uses only 3 percent of its capacity. The Northwest Open Access Network uses fiber from the BPA fiber network. It’s run by a private nonprofit cooperative consisting of NoaNet Washington and NoaNet Oregon. DailyWireless has more on NOANET.

The 2001 Oregon Legislature created Oregon Telecommunications Coordinating Council (ORTCC), to encourage broadband access, and study alternative approaches to providing coordinated statewide, regional and local telecommunication services, including:

Providing services to unserved or underserved areas of the state
Studying how telecommunication investments can be coordinated to facilitate partnerships between the public sector and the private sector, and between state and local governments.

The mission of the Oregon Broadband Partnership Committee is to expand broadband access for Oregon’s citizens, institutions and businesses. Organizations in the public and private sector would be offered low-cost financing for the acquisition of hardware, software and services. Similar approaches are found in Alaska, Kentucky, Michigan and North Carolina.

The Oregon Public Utility Commission endorsed the concept of an Oregon Broadband Partnership (pdf) to provide grant writing support, matching funds and loan guarantees that will permit Oregon to use available USDA/Rural Utility Service funding or other sources to expand Oregon s broadband infrastructure though public-private partnerships. They might be a little late on that USDA/RUS thingie.

Like other states, the ORTCC Archives, has an ongoing discussion of the issues. House Bill 2445, for example, would restrict municipal networks, and is scheduled for hearing next week (Agendas and Bill Tracking).

The hearing on HB 2445, sponsored by Representatives Tom Butler (R-Ontario) and Mike Schaufler (D-Happy Valley), to restrict municipal broadband in Oregon, will be held this Wednesday, February 23th, at 8:30am in the Oregon State Capitol (hearing room #B) in Salem, Oregon.

Ron Sege, CEO of Tropos Networks, which has over 100 “municipal clouds” under its belt, has compiled a fact sheet (pdf) that reviews some of the issues that decision makers should be aware of.

The New America Foundation says spectrum politics is special interest politics — and has mapped it out.

The Oregon Telecommunications Association (representing independent phone companies), Qwest, and the Oregon Cable Association are sometimes at odds with the League of Oregon Cities, Oregon Counties, consumer and other interests.

Municipal networks are the life-blood for many rural communities:

A huge municipal wireless network has been built in in Eastern, Oregon. Covering 700 square miles, it spans nine cities in Northeastern Oregon and Washington State and brings new public safety and emergency response applications to the region’s police, fire and medical first responders. Fred Ziari’s 700 Mile Cloud could be the largest WiFi cloud in the country and uses hundreds of ORiNOCO Access Points, backhauled with Proxim’s wirelesss Tsunami when cabling is not available. It was built to protect citizens from accidental releases from The Umatilla Chemical Weapon incineration program.

A couple of large municipal systems are used in Eastern Washingon. One uses Vivato antennas (like Spokane’s Wireless City Cloud) while the other provides a wireless interface to Bonneville fiber.

The Vivato-based regional network covers an area bigger than the state of Delaware, encompassing three counties in Eastern Washington and Oregon with a population of about 60,000.

Covering parts of Walla Walla, Columbia, Franklin, Benton and Umatilla counties, the Rural Electric Association deployed six Vivato 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi base stations and several Vivato micro and pico cells. Columbia Rural Electric Association (REA) and its Columbia Energy LLC built the network for farmers who monitor irrigation equipment in the field and for residential and business customers who have limited access to cable or digital subscriber line service.

The Benton Public Utility District, based in Kennewick, Wash., has a different approach, putting access points on utility poles. Benton PUD didn’t want to become an ISP with the hassles of dealing with billing, technical support, etc. So they lease dark fiber from the BPA and allowed multiple ISPs to provide service. It was constructed by Chameleon Technology.

Maverick Wireless, built the 40-mile square mile hotzone in Benton County, Washington, around the city of Kennewick, and plans a national rollout of its pole-mounted WiFi system. Maverick calls its service a “carrier grade, community-wide Wi-Fi network” with 128kbps available for $19.95, 512kbps for $34.95, or 1Mbps for $49.95. The network uses 256-bit encryption for security with an authentication scheme.

It’s informative that the astroturf New Millennium Research Group, uses Ashland Fiber as an example of a “failed municipal project“. I’ve seen and heard only positive comments about the Ashland Oregon, fiber project. Residents can get 3 to 5 megabit data services for $20/month with three ISPs competing for their business. Another six ISPs serve businesses.

Ashland Fiber is also tied into Ashland Unwired (above) which provides WiFi “cloud” coverage throughout the community. Ashland was one of the first cities in the United States to explore the concept of an “unwired community”. Most accounts indicate it has been quite successful.

OneCleveland is a non-profit organization that provides broadband networking to educational, governmental, research, arts, healthcare and nonprofit organizations across Northeast Ohio. It delivers broadband, wired and wireless, without the municipality deploying a network directly.

Subscribers to OneCleveland, like Case Western University, offer Wi-Fi services to their users. Case manages the entire wireless network using CiscoWorks Monitoring software. Art and engineering students are collaborating to develop text, video, audio, and speech recognition applicatons. So far, Cleveland has added some 4,000 hotspots in various parts of the city.

The Wireless Athens Georgia Zone uses seven BelAir200 units to form a wireless network throughout 24 blocks of downtown Athens. The Wireless Athens Project, one of the first “city clouds”, is also one of the best. That’s because students at the University of Georgia are developing innovative software applications.

Utah’s UTOPIA (right), serves Salt Lake City and 17 other cities across the state of Utah with a publicly-owned, fiber telecommunications network that will reach nearly 250,000 homes and 35,000 business, representing a population of about 724,000.

Six years after the ultra high-speed fiber network was first conceived by the city fathers of Provo, Utah’s second largest city is rolling out triple-play to residents and businesses.

Municipal Networks Are Becoming Self-Aware. The effectiveness of citywide Wi-Fi networks, however, is still to be proven.

Big telecom and cable companies are slaming the door on community wireless, using their lobbying clout in state capitals to pre-empt local control, preserve higher prices and preclude competition, says FreePress.Net. “Will the Texas legislature knowingly pass a bill that may harm their constituents,” asks David Deans.

Verizon helped write legislation that banned city efforts such as Philadelphia’s Wireless Zone, to assist in providing wireless “zones”.
BellSouth and Qwest attempted to push for severe restrictions on municipal broadband service, in Louisiana and Utah. Those bills ended in compromise, in some cases with existing plans being allowed to continue but new plans limited.
After 11 attempts in four years, SBC finally got laws passed in Wisconsin last July that restricted the development of municipal broadband.
A fiber ring in North Kansas City, Mo., serving businesses and law enforcement used the city’s casino revenue for funding. Time Warner Cable sued the city.
Broadband Report’s interview with Ed Hodges on Chicago’s municipal Fiber experience has the harsh reality. It’s political warfare. Telcos blanketed the media with lies, say Chicago muni fiber supporters.

State-Wide Initiatives

Will the Pennsylvania legislation impact state-sponsored broadband initiatives and Regional Fiber Backbones? Michigan, North Carolina, Utah and Kentucky, to name a few, have Broadband Authorities that make ubiquitous broadband a priority.

ConnectKentucky.org, Kentucky Governor Fletcher’s prescription for a comprehensive broadband deployment statewide.

Michigan’s Broadband Authority improves the deployment and utilization of broadband service in the state. They offer low-cost loans to telecommunications companies willing to make investments in broadband networks and services, such as fiber, DSL, cable, and fixed wireless.

North Carolina’s e-NC is a grassroots initiative to encourage all North Carolina citizens to use technology, especially the Internet, to improve their quality of life and their economic prospects.

Smart Utah is a nonprofit corporation that was formed by Governor Leavitt to provide a coordinating function between business, government and education. Their UTOPIA Project will provide cable, phone and broadband service to some 723,000 residents in 248,000 households and 34,500 businesses via fiber.

The Oregon Telecommunications Coordinating Council recommended an Oregon Broadband Authority in their November, 2004 Report to the Oregon Legislature.

The Pittsburgh Wireless Neighborhoods Cooperative was formed to provide advanced network services to traditionally underserved communities.

MuniWireless opines:

It’s funny that state legislators complain when tax money is used to build out infrastructure that actually helps residents and businesses get online and benefit from e-commerce, and attract businesses to move in. But the same politicians don’t mind when cities spend hundreds of millions of dollars building out sports stadiums in the name of economic development.

Many frequencies in the high UHF spectrum are used for translators, distributing big city television, state-wide, such as the Rural Oregon Wireless Television, OPAN and Oregon WIN (in my neck of the woods). They take a satellite (or microwave) feed and put out a 10 watt UHF signal. Translators may be replaced by satellite. The National ITFS Association (Instructional Fixed providers) share the 2.5-2.7 GHz band with commercial (MMDS) providers. The National Exchange Carrier Association Agency (NECA) administers the Universal Service Fund.

Statewide networks are there. They use satellites, IFTS/MMDS and UHF television frequencies. Public Utility Districts might not need a mess of towers and a ton of cash to provide phone and broadband services over a broad region. Intel says TV channels 5-13, and 21-51 (pdf) can be shared for unlicensed broadband and independent ISPs.

PUDs could do it themselves. On 700 MHz.

WirelessHoustonCounty (above), plans a county-wide WiMax service. They estimate the cost of a county-wide wireless broadband deployment would require only two towers and a modest $360,000 capital investment. How long will it take your city or county to break even? Do the math.

WiMax base stations are just glorified WiFi hotspots — fast, cheap and interoperable. WiMax could provide real competition — competing wireless ISPs could lease space from a municipal network, built by PUDs for public service. What’s wrong with that?

RAINS enables governments, schools and other organizations to share sensitive information over pagers, cellphones or PDAs. GovTech Magazine says the European public sector, has strongly embraced open source, embracing collaborative projects and support them with public money rather than let the marketplace decide which products will survive and prosper. Europe’s strong support for open source means that innovation is often taking place overseas, not here in America.