D-Link is helping a Colorado phone company bring Internet Access to rural America, says the company. Wiggins, Colorado (pop: 838), wanted high-speed Internet access for residents, but the Wiggins Telephone Association used copper wires. It couldn’t deliver the speed and range required.
“Fiber to the home was the only logical choice,” said Casey Quint, plant supervisor for Wiggins Telephone.
In order to deliver connectivity into local homes and businesses, Wiggins needed a “set-top box,” essentially a router for each of the premises. Another regional telecom provider, Golden West Internet Solutions, suggested that Wiggins install D-Link routers in their local service area.
Wiggins chose the D-Link Wireless G Router (WBR-1310). The router connects to an Optical Network Terminal (ONT) card provided by Calix (which is Wiggins’ transport provider). That card links to a gigabit fiber port outside the structure.
“The D-Link router offered us a quality low-cost solution that we could feel comfortable putting into the customer’s house,” said Hendrickson. “With D-Link, we can deliver end-to-end optic fiber connectivity — from 3MB to 100MB — to any home or business. We offer tiered pricing, so we can be flexible as bandwidth needs increase,” said Quint.
The service area covered by Wiggins includes 1,600 phone lines that spread over 2,000 square miles. That’s less than one customer per square mile. “It’s a rural area, but we need high speed Internet services just like people do in the cities. Perhaps more so. We can’t just go around the corner to a coffee shop and get Wi-Fi. People in the city take that for granted,” said Hendrickson.
Wiggins is hoping that the project will serve as a stimulus to the local economy. “Internet connectivity is essential these days,” said Hendrickson. “We have a lot of work from home moms and home businesses in the area, and they need the bandwidth.”
Of course, fiber to the residence is expensive and it has range limitations. Still, Daily Tech reports that researchers have discovered a way to amplify the maximum reach of fiber broadband from Gigabit Passive Optical Networks — the technology used by Verizon’s FiOS. It currently has a range of about 19 miles. The experimental setup was able to transmit error free data at a speed of 2.5Gb/s over single mode fiber 37 miles long.
Wireless is slower, but cheaper and mobile.
WiMAX in the 3.65GHz, 3.5GHz or 2.6GHz bands can also supply a high-speed backbone. WiMAX can deliver 30 Mbps to multiple Meraki MR58 outdoor 802.11n radios. With three 802.11n radios, Meraki’s $1500 MR58 can also be used to create long distance mesh links as far as 20 km with optional antennas.
Every two years, speed seems to be doubled while costs are halved in the wireless environment. Fiber to the home will always cost thousands. There’s a line between “stimulus” and “waste”.
A critical and thoughtful study should always be performed. A broadband infrastructure that’s not self-sustaining, serves no one.
In other related news, Comcast continues to dominate the cable landscape in the United States, with 20.1 million subs in the top 40 markets, almost three times the total of the second-largest cable operator, Time Warner, with 7.8 million in those DMAs, according to the latest SNL Kagan Survey. Rounding out the top sub count leaders in the top 40 markets: Cablevision (3.1 million), Charter (2.8 million), Bright House (2.2 million), “other” (2.02 million), Cox (2.00 million), Insight (201,000) and Mediacom (176,000).
