March/April - Broadband Communities Magazine

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Editor’s Note

Getting Creative With Broadband

EDITORIAL DIRECTOR

Scott DeGarmo PUBLISHER

Nancy McCain [email protected] Corporate Editor, BBP LLC

Steven S. Ross [email protected] Editor

Masha Zager [email protected] ADVERTISING SALES

Irene G. Prescott [email protected]

Marketing Specialist

Meredith Terrall [email protected]

DESIGN & PRODUCTION

Karry Thomas

Contributors

Joe Bousquin David Daugherty, Korcett Holdings Inc. Richard Holtz, InfiniSys W. James MacNaughton, Esq. Henry Pye, RealPage Bryan Rader, Bandwidth Consulting LLC Robert L. Vogelsang, Broadband Communities Magazine BROADBAND PROPERTIES LLC PRESIDENT & CEO

Scott DeGarmo

SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT CHIEF FINANCIAL OFFICER

Himi Kittner

VICE PRESIDENT, BUSINESS & OPERATIONS

Nancy McCain

Audience Development/Digital Strategies

Norman E. Dolph

CHAIRMAN OF THE BOARD

Robert L. Vogelsang VICE CHAIRMAN

The Hon. Hilda Gay Legg BUSINESS & EDITORIAL OFFICE BROADBAND PROPERTIES LLC 1909 Avenue G Rosenberg, Tx 77471 281.342.9655, Fax 281.342.1158 Www.broadbandcommunities.com

Broadband Communities (ISSN 0745-8711) (USPS 679050) (Publication Mail Agreement #1271091) is published 7 times a year at a rate of $24 per year by Broadband Properties LLC, 1909 Avenue G, Rosenberg, TX 77471. Periodical postage paid at Rosenberg, TX, and additional mailing offices. POSTMASTER: Please send address changes to Broadband Communities, PO Box 303, Congers, NY 10920-9852. CANADA POST: Publications Mail Agreement #40612608. Canada Returns to be sent to Bleuchip International, PO Box 25542, London, ON N6C 6B2. Copyright © 2012 Broadband Properties LLC. All rights reserved.

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One reward of editing a magazine is being able to call attention to great new ideas. This issue is exceptionally rewarding.

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aybe it’s the arrival of spring, but I’m seeing shoots of creativity burgeoning everywhere. This issue introduces the first installment of a new feature, Lessons From the Field. It’s a series of short takes that showcase the creative solutions smaller companies have developed to address broadband deployment challenges, both technical and financial. Deployers are working with vendors and consultants to deliver the benefits of high-speed broadband in ways tailored to their particular areas. Unlike larger telecom operators, which can have equipment and software designed to order and can finance customized marketing campaigns, smaller companies depend largely on off-the-shelf products and services. Creativity for them lies in devising new combinations and applications of materials already at hand. Even a provider in unusual circumstances – one company featured in Lessons From the Field delivers fiber-based broadband to a ski resort at the top of the Sierra Nevada – may devise a solution that proves useful to others. Given that more than 800 companies now deploy fiber to the premises, mostly on a small scale, and many more deploy other technologies for advanced broadband, a good solution developed by one company is almost bound to find another application somewhere else. More Examples The creative solutions detailed in this issue of Broadband Communities don’t appear only in Lessons From the Field. In the Owners Corner column, Henry

Pye describes how he and others came up with a cost-effective way to deploy managed Ethernet solutions in cottagestyle student housing communities. Joan Engebretson reveals how creative financing (I mean that in a good way) allowed the Rural Nebraska Healthcare Network to improve health care in the Nebraska panhandle region and bring high-speed broadband services to businesses. In the Property of the Month feature, the aptly named consulting firm Innovative I.T. discusses how it designed stateof-the-art broadband infrastructure for an affordable housing community – enabling the developer, Abode Communities, to not only bridge the digital divide but also win a Platinum LEED rating. The MDU Showcase describes how Elauwit Networks, a private cable operator in Seattle, worked with 3M to run fiber almost invisibly through the hallways and apartments of a luxury high-rise. And in the Broadband Apps section, Jack Olson of Viamedia offers ideas for small FTTH providers that want to use their fiber to deliver advanced video services but are daunted by the economics of a business that seems tilted in favor of the big guns. You’ll find plenty more examples of deployer imagination throughout this issue – as well as a 13-page list of new product offerings that should inspire network builders to new heights of inventiveness. Happy spring!

| BROADBAND COMMUNITIES | www.broadbandcommunities.com | March/April 2012

[email protected].

Solid. Innovative. Always-there-for-you. (a.k.a. Time Warner Cable.) Your residents already know what’s in our name. Building a great reputation is easy. Start by concentrating on a single customer and providing them with advanced Digital TV, Internet, and Digital Home Phone services, as flawlessly as possible, over an extended period. Then, just repeat the process a few million times. At least, that’s always been our goal. You expect nothing less. Time Warner Cable delivers. To learn more about partnering with Time Warner Cable, simply contact Joanne C. Luger at 703.345.2749 or email [email protected]

© 2012 Time Warner Cable Inc. All rights reserved, Time Warner Cable and the eye/ear logo are trademarks of Time Warner Inc., used under license.

Table of Contents DEPARTMENTS

IN THIS ISSUE

Editor’s Note . . . . . . . . 2 Advertiser Index. . . . . 76 Bandwidth Hawk . . . . . 6 Calendar . . . . . . . . . . 76 MarketPlace Ads. . . . . 75

Provider Perspective Hungry for a New Approach? | 8

HOT PRODUCTS Broadband Communities’ 11th Annual List of Leading Broadband Technologies and Services | 32

Learn about this year’s latest and greatest broadband products … and then see them at the BBC Summit.

Independent Telcos More Than 600 Independent Telcos Deploy FTTH | 48

By Bryan J. Rader ■ Bandwidth Consulting LLC A reality show about restaurant makeovers inspires new ideas for private cable operators.

Owners Corner Cottage-Style Broadband | 10 By Henry Pye ■ RealPage Inc. The newest student-housing communities may look like singlefamily developments, but using Ethernet to manage their Internet services still makes sense.

Fiber Deployments Highlights From the Fiber Deployment Roundup Blog | 12

By Masha Zager ■ Broadband Communities A technology once on the bleeding edge is now thoroughly mainstream for small telephone companies – but will it stay that way?

Special report on responses to the Gig.U RFI, plus: Google starts its FTTH deployment in Kansas City; DISH Network launches a video offering on the UTOPIA open-access network; a publicprivate partnership in California turns up its first fiber-fed building.

Lessons From the Field Tales From the Fiber Frontier | 54

Property of the Month Rio Vista Apartments, Los Angeles | 14

How to power a mountain, mix and match different flavors of fiber, beta-test new gear and market services for a network that hasn’t been built.

Middle-Mile Networks Unique Partnership Key To Rural Nebraska Healthcare Network | 56

By Joan Engebretson A creative collaboration leads to better health care for residents of the Nebraska panhandle and better broadband for the area’s businesses.

Technology Passive Optical LAN For Smart Businesses | 60

By Rob Narzisi ■ Advanced Media Technologies Fiber-to-the-desk solutions are catching on. Their lower capex and opex, combined with environmental benefits and future-proofing, have caught the attention of IT departments.

The Case for Vectoring | 64

By Ariel Caner ■ ECI Telecom A new technology that lets telcos deliver more advanced services over copper eases the transition to fiber.

Economic Development Proving the Link Between Broadband And Economic Development | 68

By Ken Demlow ■ NewCom Technologies To demonstrate that broadband sparks economic development, communities need to pool their information.

Broadband Apps Getting Started With Video Advertising | 72

By Jack Olson ■ Viamedia Video is a big part of the FTTH equation, and local advertising is a big part of video. It’s daunting, but third-party partners can help. Visit www.bbcmag.com for up-to-the-minute news of broadband trends, technologies and deployments. Follow Broadband Communities on Twitter at www.twitter.com/ bbcmag for alerts about breaking news items.

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By Joe Bousquin ■ Broadband Communities This affordable housing community in Los Angeles uses state-ofthe-art broadband infrastructure, free basic Internet service for residents and a computer lab to help bridge the digital divide.

MDU Showcase Fiber Pathways Preserve The View in Upscale High-Rise | 18 By Linnea Wilkes ■ 3M Communication Markets Division The views from Seattle’s Grandview tower are indeed grand – both outside and inside. When the homeowners association upgraded to FTTH, it managed to keep the views intact with some help from 3M.

MDU Technology MDU Solutions for Electric Vehicle Charging | 20 By Bryan J. Rader ■ Bandwidth Consulting LLC Get ready for the next technology amenity on MDU residents’ must-have list.

FTTH Industry Leaders Q&A With Pedro Correa, Vice President, Verizon Enhanced Communities | 22

Verizon’s new MDU chief aims to win the hearts and minds of multifamily residents – and of property owners, too.

Q&A With Heather Gold, President, FTTH Council North America | 26

The Council’s new leader, a telecom industry veteran, will reach out to communities to help them channel their “gig envy” into action plans.

FTTH Conference Munich Is Europe Ready For the Zettabyte Era? | 28 By Olaf Storaasli ■ DSM Functional Materials Experts convened at a roundtable at the European FTTH Conference agreed that the mainstream telecom industry in Europe is finally embracing fiber to the home.

| BROADBAND COMMUNITIES | www.broadbandcommunities.com | March/April 2012

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3D Is Here to Stay It takes a visionary to see the invisible. But it shouldn’t when it comes to broadband. The signs are all too obvious. By Steven S. Ross ■ Broadband Communities

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y wife often jokes that it takes four people to make me look sentient on TV – one behind the camera, one to check the sound, one to set the lights and a producer to boss them all around. Now it takes at least two more, to aim two additional cameras, both 3D. This crew all crowded into an airplane a few months ago to shoot a new History Channel special. 3D has become the norm for television production because that end of the business knows 3D is here to stay. Just look at the ongoing “fire sale” of less capable flat-screen sets at Best Buy, Walmart and the local appliance store. The ideal – a 3D set that doesn’t need those cumbersome 3D glasses – has been on the market for two years. It will be mainstream by year-end, if not sooner. In the wings is a new, top-end HDTV with vertical resolution of 2,160 lines instead of 1,080. That’s a fourfold increase in pixels – and 20 Mbps per channel. Combine that with the “one customer, many screens” strategy network providers are rolling out, and household bandwidth demand is jumping again. Think about Mom, Dad, and the kids, each watching what they want on a tablet or a large-screen TV ... or a mobile phone. Think about mobile communications channeled mainly through users’ own home networks to avoid or ameliorate cellular download limits. Think about the 150 Mbps top-end service that Verizon is expected to roll out next year – a service possible only on a fiber-to-the-home network. And think about the 20 to 50 Mbps upload speed that will come with it.

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Think about the burgeoning field of cloud services – everything from home and business data backup to putting most software on the network rather than on customers’ devices. When I visited Taiwan last year, researchers showed off a powerful cloud data center housed in two semitrailer trucks. Equip a parking lot with fiber trunk or a metro ring, and you could conceivably have one of these in a few days. The Elephant in the Room Over the next five years, broadband providers will have to meet the demand for

vous? More bandwidth and more services mean more revenues. Why, then, do public officials still spout nonsense – even in states where they should know better, such as California – about mobile broadband being able to handle the demand? That would require repealing the laws of physics. Aren’t presidential candidates the only ones with a license to do that? Why, then, is there still opposition to open-access schemes, even by small ILECs that do not have anywhere near the management horsepower to offer the hundreds of branded services –

Some things are invisible because they are too small. Other things are invisible because they are too large – and the ongong seismic shift in bandwidth seems to be one of them. all these applications at the same time many of them are spending to expand the capacity of their cellular networks to somewhere near the theoretical limits for available spectrum (about 20 Mbps – and that’s pushing it – in urban areas). However, FTTH providers – and there are more than 800 of them now – will be cruising. They will have already made much of the landline investment. Why, then, is Wall Street still ner-

from cloud computing to health care to gaming – that are now available? Some things are invisible because they are too small. Other things are invisible because they are too large – and the ongoing seismic shift in bandwidth seems to be one of them. In the meantime, catch me on History Channel this month in a two-hour special, “Invisible.” It has nothing to do with broadband – and everything to do with it. v

About the Author Contact the Hawk at [email protected].

| BROADBAND COMMUNITIES | www.broadbandcommunities.com | March/April 2012

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Provider Perspective

Hungry for a New Approach? In a new reality show, a celebrity chef turns around desperate restaurants. Private cable operators could learn a thing or two from his methods. By Bryan Rader ■ Bandwidth Consulting LLC

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’ve recently started watching a show on Food Network called Restaurant: Impossible. Have you seen it yet? In this new reality show, celebrity chef Robert Irvine is given the mission of making the impossible possible by renovating a failing restaurant in two days on a $10,000 budget. His goal is to fix America’s most desperate restaurants. All the episodes we have seen center on creating fresh ideas and a new spirit using more creativity than capital. In one episode, Irvine takes on an underperforming, family-run Italian restaurant with outdated decor, no theme, an overly broad menu, an uneducated cook and a discouraged service staff. In 48 hours, he directs a complete turnaround of the business. I spoke to the owner of a restaurant in my home town that participated on Restaurant: Impossible last year. The restaurant, Meglio’s, saw sales shoot up more than 10 percent right after the reopening. “He changed my dining room and reduced my menu size,” John Meglio explained, “and he taught my cooks how to prep and cook the new menu in two days. I really liked most of the changes – and the increase in sales.” Chef Irvine turned the impossible into the possible. His approach involves fresh thinking and a new start. He is often seen tearing up old wallpaper, replacing bad lighting with newly updated fixtures and moving tables and chairs around to develop a new atmosphere. He has even knocked down walls to create a small lounge or a new bar area. Does Robert Irvine know a thing or two about the private cable operator (PCO) business? Just like the restaurants in Restaurant: Impossible, many PCOs get stuck in a rut.

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Spruce up the infrastructure, bring the products up to date, inspire the staff – et voilà! Imagine you had $10,000 to spend in 48 hours on one of your old cable systems that hasn’t seen an upgrade in quite a while – one that is living on an old analog service with modest digital offerings and slow Internet speeds. What would you do to improve your business, your product and your service to this community? How could you turn Cable: Impossible into possible? As Easy as 1-2-3 The first thing the Restaurant: Impossible team does is to look at the restaurant’s decor. One of the show’s designers, Vanessa Deleon of Vanessa Deleon Associates, told me, “I look at the clientele, the demographics of the customer. I use this to determine the right theme, look and feel for the upgrade. Your environment is everything, and the restaurant needs to look the right part. I find ways to creatively give the space a lift.” For PCOs, the equivalent of decor is the infrastructure. A quick face-lift might include fixing home-run wires draped across exterior walls, improving the plant electronics to increase Internet speeds, retightening security boxes or adding another satellite to the mix. Step two for Irvine is to look at the restaurant’s product – its menu. Often,

he cuts the number of menu items in half and picks a few specialties to give the restaurant some uniqueness. A PCO could also take a look at its menu. Has it correctly matched broadband speeds to residents’ demands? Does it offer the right mix of programming for the community? Is it trying to duplicate Comcast’s offering or is it catering to the MDU client’s true needs, which might involve adding a Wi-Fi hotspot for the leasing office or creating an access-gate channel for residents to see their guests? Finally, Restaurant: Impossible works with the restaurant’s wait staff, educating them about their products and instilling in them a sense of ownership, pride and enthusiasm. PCOs can do the same with service techs and CSRs. Are they trained to upsell customers to new products? Do they know the triple-play specials? Have they bought into the program? Upgrading a tired old family restaurant can be very similar to upgrading a sleepy old PCO system. With limited resources, Restaurant: Impossible achieves success by creatively adjusting the atmosphere, modifying the product and improving service. PCOs with limited resources can also focus on the possible and give new life to their tired old systems. v

About the Author Bryan Rader is CEO of Bandwidth Consulting LLC, which assists providers in the multifamily market. You can reach Bryan at [email protected] or at 636536-0011. Learn more at www.bandwidthconsultingllc.com.

| BROADBAND COMMUNITIES | www.broadbandcommunities.com | March/April 2012

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©2012 Charter Communications. Residential customers only. Programming line up may vary. Trademarks belong to their respective owners. A Charter HD/DVR receiver is required for HD/DVR service. Customer’s TV must be HD capable. Internet speeds may vary. Charter does not guarantee data will be secure. Unlimited long distance includes the U.S., Canada and Puerto Rico. ‡Savings compared to similar phone packages offered by Qwest, Verizon and AT&T in Charter markets, based on provider Web sites 1/24/12. Worldwide 250 Calling Plan only available with Charter Phone Unlimited Calling Plan. Rate in addition to local line and other services. Plan requires use of an access code. Plan limited to 250 minutes per calendar month. Minutes refreshed on first day of calendar month. Calls to mobile devices not included. Visit charter.com/ internationalcalling for a list of included countries. Charter Internet Express includes speeds up to 8 Mbps. PowerBoost® applies to Charter Internet Express, Plus and Max services only. Availability of PowerBoost on any single download session is subject to availability. PowerBoost is a registered trademark of Comcast Corporation. Installation, taxes, and fees are extra. Equipment may be required and charges may apply. Credit approval, prepayment or major credit card may be required. All services provided are subject to the subscriber agreement and applicable tariff, which are subject to change. Services not available in all areas. Restrictions apply. Ask for full details.

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Owners Corner

Cottage-Style Broadband Aspen Heights ups the ante at student cottage-style developments by providing HSIA services as good as or better than those in traditional multifamily buildings – contrary to conventional wisdom. By Henry Pye ■ RealPage Inc.

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ottage-style developments are the newest trend in off-campus student living. Combining many facets of new urbanism, a cottage student development is essentially a neighborhood of duplexes and Colorado-style homes (houses with open floor plans centered around large living spaces) leased by the bed. Some recent cottage developments include single-family homes intermixed with three- to sixunit attached homes or even traditional multifamily buildings. Every cottage development has a clubhouse that offers amenities on a par with any multifamily development. In the fall of 2011, Aspen Heights – a company founded with the goal of revolutionizing student living – approached RealPage with an interesting challenge: provide its residents with the same highspeed Internet access (HSIA) as multifamily developments without breaking the bank. The company had two new cottage-style developments under way. • Aspen Heights Auburn will include 123 homes, 206 units and 600 beds and be served by Knology. • Aspen Heights San Antonio will have 172 homes, 284 units and 844 beds and be served by Time Warner Cable. In building cottage developments, developers hope to blend the best aspects of purpose-built student housing and traditional single-family neighborhoods. For more than a decade, almost all purposebuilt student multifamily communities have used highly managed Ethernet networks to provide wired and wireless HSIA to residents. In a typical student building, a fiber backbone runs to build-

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8 Data or IP TV Drops to Outlets 6 Video Drops to Outlets

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ing or riser closets, and Cat 5e cables feed each unit. The solution is similar to what is used in local area networks (LANs) in fiber-fed commercial buildings. Ethernet, outfitted with managed switches and access points, has repeatedly proved to be the most cost-effective way to provide HSIA. However, the cost of running fiber to more than 100 structures, not to mention the expense of as many closets or surface-mounted enclosures, has been considered prohibitive

for cottage developments. Instead, the sorts of cable modem or xDSL solutions used in neighborhoods of single-family homes were believed to be the best options for cottage developments. All a cottage developer needed to do was provide the phone or cable company with access to the joint trench, and the community would be ready to provide HSIA to its residents. Unfortunately, although cable and DSL services are well-suited for single-

About the Author Henry Pye is vice president of resident technology services for RealPage (www.realpage. com). He can be reached at [email protected].

| BROADBAND COMMUNITIES | www.broadbandcommunities.com | March/April 2012

Owners Corner family homes and conventional multifamily communities, there is a reason these services struggle in student multifamily communities. Cable modem and xDSL solutions are simply not as highly manageable. Student living is the most challenging environment in which to provide wired and wireless HSIA, and many cottage developments have run into the same problems that previously caused student multifamily communities to move to Ethernet delivery. Tackling the Cost Issue Still, wouldn’t building an Ethernet network for a cottage-style community be far too expensive? To be candid, we at RealPage had our doubts. We had proposals in hand that quoted more than $750,000 for the fiber alone based on traditional multifamily designs. Thus, although we had many questions, we knew the Ethernet needed to be laid out differently if we were to have any hope of an affordable solution. With the help of hardworking contractors Mike Kolb and Scott Hart, and of Chris Bowman and David Lippke at the managed Internet service firm Korcett, we first isolated the primary cost drivers of an Ethernet buildout and then crafted a layout focused on reducing the most expensive components. Although most people look at the open spaces of a cottage development as a problem for low-voltage layouts, we embraced open space as a blank slate without many of the pathway constraints of multifamily construction. Figure 1 shows the basic wiring layout of each home. Although there are subtle differences due to unit mix, local code and home design differences, we essentially combined the typical apartment distribution panel and building communications room from a typical multifamily development. A managed switch is placed in the bottom of a vented 28-inch panel in each home to serve one or more units. A managed access point is placed above the cabinets in the kitchen. Each panel is fed directly by two strands of fiber. So far, the cost of wiring a unit is comparable to that in a typical multifamily student development. However, the fiber

Ethernet’s manageability makes it a cost-effective choice for providing Internet services in student housing, even if cabling and data equipment are more expensive. and data equipment cost is still at least twice that of a multifamily student development, even though we were able to slash the cost to a fraction of the original estimates. We believed the increase in the speed and quality of the HSIA services would have justified the additional cost of fiber and electronics – but, thankfully, we never had to find out. FTTB Less Expensive Than Cable Unsure about whether we would succeed in designing a cost-effective Ethernet layout, we simultaneously drafted layouts and solicited offers for cable modem solutions from the same cable company partners. In all cases, the speeds were slower, and in only one case was there any wireless option – yet the pricing for cable modem solutions was more expensive. As a result, the developments had better service with the fiber and Ethernet solution and, at worst, broke even on price. Additional modeling seems to verify this cost advantage for most cottage developments with four or fewer beds per unit.

These two cottage developments will open in summer 2012. In addition to high-quality wired and wireless HSIA, each community also provides a digital cable TV package. Moreover, the management teams will enjoy the Ethernet-enabled tools now common in multifamily student communities: The management teams have access to the wireless network throughout the community for operations. They can message every resident via HSIA, receiving acknowledgements with date and time stamps. Management can also slow down HSIA for individual residents who fail to pay their rent on time or otherwise violate their leases. Finally, although we are thrilled by the assistance and quality of service from our cable company partners at both developments, we also look forward to the cottage developments opening in 2013, where student housing industry stalwarts such as Pavlov and Airwaves will be competing to provide bulk and premium video and HSIA over the same infrastructure. v

Why Cable Is a More Expensive Option Although Ethernet is generally considered superior for providing highspeed Internet to student living communities, cable modems have historically been considered a cheaper option. Today, this is less often the case. Of the many factors that increase the cost of cable modem solutions in student living, support costs may be the most significant. Put simply, cable modems are a less manageable mechanism for providing data services. In single-family homes, where tenancy is measured in years, investing in a truck roll or two to set up service for a home is cost-effective. However, when 700-plus 18- to 21-year-old residents move in over a period of a few days and stay for 51 weeks, a couple of truck rolls per residence is a nightmare. That cable companies charge more for cable modems at the same service levels is unsurprising, considering that cable modem deployments are more expensive to support than Ethernet deployments. Cable modems can be costeffective, but usually only at lower service levels. As a result, cable modems are a poor choice for most purpose-built student living communities.

March/April 2012 | www.broadbandcommunities.com | BROADBAND COMMUNITIES |

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FTTH deployments

Highlights From the Fiber Deployment Roundup Blog Since the last issue … • Google started FTTH deployment in Kansas City, Kan., and Kansas City, Mo. • DISH Network launched a video offering on the UTOPIA open-access network.

To stay up-to-date on news about FTTH projects, see the Fiber Deployment blog at BBCmag.com.

• Lit San Leandro – a unique public-private partnership in California that is providing fiber broadband to businesses – lit its first building. • Hong Kong Broadband Network embraced OTT content providers and bandwidth hogs. • And more – see it all on BBCmag.com.

Deployer Spotlight – From the Fiber Deployment Roundup North American Deployers Allo Communications www.allocommunications.com Bell Aliant www. bellaliant.ca Bell Canada www. bce.ca Bristol Tennessee Essential Services www.btes.net BVU Authority www.bvu-optinet.com Bulloch Telephone Cooperative www.bulloch.net Co-Mo Electric Cooperative www.co-mo.coop Consolidated Communications www.consolidated.com Crown Point Telephone www.crownpointtelephone.com Darien Telephone Company www.darientelephone.com F&B Communications www.fbcom.net Gervais Telephone Company www.gervaistel.com Google www.google.com Greenlight (city of Wilson, N.C.) www.greenlightnc.com GVTC www.gvtc.com Iowa Tribe of Kansas and Nebraska www.ioway.nativeweb.org/ iowayksne.htm Lake Region Electric Cooperative www.lrecok.coop Lit San Leandro www.litsanleandro.com Montana Opticom www.mt-opticom.com Northern Arkansas Telephone www.natconet.com Optimum Lightpath www.optimumlightpath.com Ponderosa Telephone Company www.goponderosa.com San Carlos Apache Telephone Utility www.scatui.com Shawnee Telephone Company www.shawneetelco.com Socket Telecom www.socket.net Stoneham Cooperative Telephone Corporation  970-735-2251

Telmex Thacker-Grigsby Telephone Company United Electric Cooperative UTOPIA Valu-Net Vermont Telephone Company Wilkes Telephone & Electric Company

www.telmex.com www.tgtel.com www.ueci.coop www.utopianet.org www.myvalunet.com www.vermontel.com www.nu-z.net

International Deployers Affärsverken www.affarsverken.se/English Bharat Telecom www.btl.mu BT www.bt.com CAIW www.caiway.nl CEdiS www.cedis.info CityFibre Holdings www.cityfibreholdings.com Deutsche Telekom www.telekom.com Enable Services www.enablenetworks.co.nz Energie in sachsen www.eins-energie.de Hong Kong Broadband Network www.ctigroup.com.hk INS4U Group www.ins4u.pl/en/home JT Group www.jtglobal.com Köpings Kabel-TV www.koping.net P&TLuxembourg www.pt.lu Palm Hills Developments www.phdint.com Solidere www.solidere.com Telecomunications Services of Trinidad & Tobago www.tstt.co.tt WestStar TV www.weststartv.com/index.asp

Special Report: Gig.U Gets Rolling In 2011, Broadband Communities reported on the launch of Gig.U, an ambitious effort by several dozen university

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communities across the U.S. to acquire next-generation networks. The project founders were inspired by the belief

that the intellectual capital located in university communities could combine big data with big bandwidth to drive big

| BROADBAND COMMUNITIES | www.broadbandcommunities.com | March/April 2012

FTTH deployments Vendor Spotlight – From the Fiber Deployment Roundup ActiveMania ADTRAN Alcatel-Lucent Calix Cisco Clearfield Clearleap Cygate ETI Software Solutions

www.activemania.com www.adtran.com www.alcatel-lucent.com www.calix.com www.cisco.com www.clearfieldconnection.com www.clearleap.com www.cygategroup.com www.etisoftware.com

improvements in the economy and society; they also thought university communities had such natural advantages as high density, high bandwidth demands and pre-existing network assets. By aggregating demand and finding ways to streamline deployment costs, these communities hoped to make themselves even more attractive for deployers. Gig.U issued a request for information in September with the intention of publicizing the project and testing the industry’s response to the concept. It received responses in December. Strong Interest From the Private Sector In a recent report to the participating communities, the project team said it found strong interest from the private sector. Fifty-seven responses were received from incumbent last-mile service providers, equipment manufacturers, infrastructure providers, network operators, thought leaders and nonprofits. More than half the respondents were existing service providers, including eight national telcos and MSOs. To upgrade their infrastructure to nextgeneration levels, telcos said they might need waivers of regulations (for example, some wanted to use microtrenching techniques) as well as access to multifamily properties, IP or branding rights. MSOs said they might require local assistance in transitioning from analog to digital video to increase available bandwidth. Potential new entrants had different requirements. They were interested in communities where incumbents were not planning to upgrade their infrastructure, where a specified number of households and businesses would preregister

FCA Genexis Huawei Microsoft Netadmin Systems PacketFront Viamedia Zhone Technologies

for the new services and where community stakeholders supported the project. They also needed access to rights of way, shared use of existing fiber and other assets, regulatory relief from zoning requirements and franchise restrictions, and favorable underground policies. Some responders were willing to pursue open-services models, such as constructing dark fiber rings, building FTTP networks and selling services to competitive retail providers, or building fiber to anchor institutions and using these as points of presence for wireless mesh networks. Responders also offered specific ideas about serving multifamily housing. Ideally, they wanted to offer bulk services bundled into tenants’ rent. They also suggested that communities offer incentives to property owners to let competitive providers into their buildings and that student housing networks be able to peer directly with university networks. Next Steps The RFI process illuminated technology options – some already available, some in development – that communities could consider and also outlined steps universities and communities could take, individually or in collaboration, to improve the business case for investment in next-generation networks. However, potential vendors needed much more community-specific information about existing infrastructure, demand for next-generation services, priorities, regulatory environments and possible incentives. Some communities are already in negotiations or in-depth conversations with vendors about potential upgrades or de-

www.fca.com.pl www.genexis.eu www.huawei.com www.microsoft.com www.netadminsystems.com www.packetfront.com www.viamediatv.com www.zhone.com ployments; these communities may pursue individual agreements rather than waiting for group decisions. Others are interested in issuing RFPs or otherwise engaging with vendors to work toward agreements or partnerships. Still others may drop out of the process based on the responses received. A follow-up vendor meeting was held in late March (information was not available at press time) to help communities clarify their next steps. The Gig.U team was cautiously optimistic, saying that though it’s too soon to know whether next-generation networks will be economically feasible in any or all of the communities, all the communities can clearly improve their odds by removing barriers to deployment. The report says, “Nothing in the responses suggests there are insurmountable obstacles to deploying next-generation networks in any Gig.U community. Members should be cautious, however, in assuming that the communities that seemed to receive the most interest have the greatest chance of success.… “Furthermore, all respondents made clear they viewed Phase I as the beginning of a process; future efforts and additional information about member communities and their preferences could attract additional interest from vendors who did not respond initially or alter the preferences of those who did. For these reasons, the results of Phase I provide sufficient justification for most, if not all, members to continue pursuing the goal of bringing next-generation networks to their communities.” Read the full Gig.U report on the RFI responses at www.scribd.com/glen_echo/ d/81595412-Gig-U-Public-Report-onRFI-Results

March/April 2012 | www.broadbandcommunities.com | BROADBAND COMMUNITIES |

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Rio Vista Apartments, Los Angeles By Joe Bousquin ■ Contributing Editor, Broadband Communities

This issue’s featured property is Rio Vista, an affordable housing community designed and developed by Abode Communities in Los Angeles. Thanks to Abode’s Robin Hughes and Innovative I.T. Inc.’s Brian Horton for their assistance in preparing this feature.

S

ecuring financing for affordable housing communities has become more competitive and challenging in recent years. “There are always more people asking for money than there is money available,” says Brian Horton, president of Fresno, Calif.-based Innovative I.T., a technology infrastructure consulting firm that specializes in designing high-speed networks for affordable housing developments. Horton often works with developers competing for federal low-income housing tax credits, which can be sold to banks and other corporations to secure funding. “As a developer, you need to enhance your score any way you can.” One sure-fire way for a developer to accomplish that is to provide free highspeed Internet to lower-income residents and help bridge the digital divide. That’s exactly what Los Angeles–based Abode Communities decided to do to secure tax credits for the $27 million Rio Vista Apartments, a joint-use development

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that combines affordable housing and an early education center on Los Angeles Unified School District surplus land. In each of the 50 units at the modern mid-rise centered on a clean, inviting courtyard, residents who earn between 30 and 60 percent of the area’s median income enjoy free broadband Internet connections that Abode provides as an included amenity, with possible speeds ranging up to 24 Mbps. In combination with the community’s on-site computer center, that connection provides access to job resources, education and health care services. “Having access to that technology and the Internet goes beyond computer literacy,” says Robin Hughes, president

and CEO of Abode Communities. “It’s really about developing the whole family, whether it’s helping kids with their academics or giving adults a key resource in their job search. This kind of access provides a very important tool for our residents.” Although residents get Internet access for free, provided by Rio Vista, the community was also developed with choice in mind. Residents can choose to subscribe to triple-play services from AT&T or Time Warner Cable or to video from DISH Network. Large in-unit media cans provide enough space for various equipment, such as optical network terminals (ONTs), modems and wireless access

About the Author Joe Bousquin is a contributing editor for Broadband Communities and a journalist with more than 15 years’ experience writing about finance, real estate and technology. You can reach him at [email protected].

| BROADBAND COMMUNITIES | www.broadbandcommunities.com | March/April 2012

having all the different parts work together when we flipped the switch. The fact that we haven’t had any service calls is the biggest success of all.”

Solar heating and electric systems are controlled through the building network.

Vital Statistics Property Description: Rio Vista Apartments, located in the northeast Los Angeles neighborhood of Glassell

points from multiple service providers. “That was a key component in the design,” Horton says. “You can provide choice to residents by getting different service providers into the building, but if you’re going to put a 12-inch media can in the unit [that could not accommodate their equipment], you might as well not bother.” Having enough space enables residents to subscribe to television programming from one provider, telephony from another and enhanced Internet, if desired, from a third. In addition to the computer lab, common-area amenities include an entertainment room with automated audio and video control components and outdoor speakers with an iPod input that can easily be controlled with a single Control4 remote. Other smart features of the community include IP-enabled security

The Rio Vista community offers the use of a computer lab to all residents.

monitoring systems and an IP-enhanced solar water-heating system that helped score the property a LEED for Homes Platinum rating, the highest achievable. Abode can now monitor solar energy generation and usage throughout the community from a central location. “Providing the correct pathways to the various points of the building to make sure we could monitor the solar panels was critical,” Horton says. “One of the biggest achievements was just

Park, is the first joint-use development in the County of Los Angeles between the school district and the private sector. It combines affordable housing and shared parking designed and developed by Abode Communities with an early education center designed by Gonzalez Goodale Architects and developed and operated by the Los Angeles Unified School District on the district’s surplus land. Common areas shared by the residential portion and early educa-

Property of the Month Highlights Rio Vista Apartments • Affordable-housing project/early childhood education center in Los Angeles uses technology to help bridge the digital divide. • The developer provides a computer lab for residents and free 1 Mbps Internet service to each apartment over a network that consists of fiber to the IDFs and Cat 5e cabling to each apartment. • For additional fees, triple-play services are available from AT&T and Time Warner Cable, and video is available from DISH Network. • The building network also supports IP-based management of a solar energy system and a security system. • Technology design and engineering was performed by Innovative I.T.; equipment vendors include HP, SonicWALL, Planet, Ruckus Wireless and Control4. March/April 2012 | www.broadbandcommunities.com | BROADBAND COMMUNITIES |

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The housing community is colocated with an early education center, with which it shares a community room and playground. tion center include a community room for resident and teacher use and a playground for students and residents. Extensive on-site services are offered to residents and community members through Abode Communities’ Beyond Homes program, which operates in conjunction with 10 in-kind service providers. Greenfield or retrofit? New construction Number of residential/commercial units: 50 units High-rise/mid-rise/garden style: Mid-rise with central courtyard Time to deploy? Designed and engineered during construction – an 11-month engagement Date services started being delivered: November 2011 Technology The following questions were answered by Brian Horton, president of Innovative I.T. Inc. How does fiber get to the property? Backbone and backhaul fiber services are provided via the local IP carriers, AT&T and Time Warner. Technology infrastructure consultant Innovative I.T. assisted with the carrier design to bring qualified services to

the property during the construction phase. How is fiber distributed inside the building? Innovative I.T. designed the network’s core and distribution layers during the construction phase. From the main distribution frame, several dedicated pathways were engineered to the outlying intermediate distribution frame (IDF) closets. These host fiber interconnections consist of HP ProCurve enterprise switches. Because of the funding requirements of this low-income housing project, the access layer consists of dedicated Cat 5e cable to each unit. For residents’ included Internet services, the signal is routed from a ProCurve multimode fiber gigabit interface converter (GBIC) via the Cat 5e cable to the in-unit media can. Additionally, access can be supplied via DSLAM/xDSL services distributed from the MDF. What is the speed of the connection? As part of the California Tax Credit Allocation Committee (CA-TCAC) funding initiatives, residents receive the dedicated Internet connection for free, with Rio Vista effectively acting as its own Internet service provider. Innovative I.T. provides a bulk service for Rio Vista to distribute to its residents. All residents receive at least the minimum mandated speed of 1 Mpbs Internet service, and the network is scalable up to 24 Mbps. What type of gear is used? The Rio Vista deployment includes HP ProCurve GBICs and enterprise switches, SonicWALL firewalls, Planet xDSL modems and Ruckus wireless access points.

Community center powered by Control4

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How did you deal with wiring and plug access within the units? Because the project was new construction, Inno-

vative I.T. was contracted during the design phase to oversee all technology initiatives. As a result, all in-unit wiring was designed in advance to allow for maximum flexibility. For example, large, in-unit media cans provide enough room for equipment from multiple providers – such as an ONT or a modem from an Internet service provider or a wireless access point for in-unit wireless coverage. In addition, all the rooms in each apartment have RG-6 coaxial jacks as well as dedicated Cat 5e Ethernet and voice jacks. Did you provide wireless signals within units? In-unit wireless was not engineered into the system, but 802.11x wireless was provided for all common areas via Ruckus enterprise access points, described below. Are closets shared with other utilities, or did you need to create a dedicated maintenance space? Utility closets are shared. Innovative I.T. coordinated communications vendors for mechanical, backboard, grounding and electrical requirements. Services Does the building have triple-play services? Yes. Can residents subscribe to IPTV? Yes. Are there amenities beyond the triple play or IP systems for managing the property? Yes. Beyond resident data requirements, Innovative I.T. designed and engineered commonarea 802.11x wireless via enterprise Ruckus access points and entertainment solutions powered by smart home automation manufacturer Control4. As the building is equipped with photovoltaic systems, Innovative I.T. engineered pathways to allow for IPbased systems to manage and collect data from the solar electric and solar thermal systems, as well as for on-site and off-site monitoring of IP camera systems. There is also on-premises computer lab equipment with Windows 7 and Apple iMac computer systems,

| BROADBAND COMMUNITIES | www.broadbandcommunities.com | March/April 2012

Business Who owns the network? Does the property owner have “skin in the game”? Who paid for what? In this project, unlike traditional market-rate projects, the property owner owns the entire network. As a low-income housing tax credit recipient, the Rio Vista community aims to bridge the digital divide by providing residents free Internet services. Was there a door fee? No.

DSL distributio

n and routing

core

IDF managed distribution layer switch

as well as outdoor audio powered via Control4 automation. Who is the wireless service provider? The community itself provides Wi-Fi access in the common areas. Do residents have a choice of service providers? Yes. In addition to the Internet service that Rio Vista provides as an amenity to all units free of charge, residents can subscribe to services from both AT&T and Time Warner, as well as video from DISH Network. How did the owner set up the multiple choice capabilities? During the construction phase, the conduit pathways and copper plant were designed to allow for nonexclusive use of inhouse and carrier services. Who provides support? If residents have an issue or technical challenge, whom do they call? Innovative I.T. maintains a 24/7 network operations center and provides resident support via a dedicated 800 number.

Are services automatically included in the rent? A minimum 1 Mbps Internet signal, which can be increased to 24 Mbps, is included free of charge. Residents can choose among television programming, voice and other services from at least three other providers at the property. What has the return been on this implementation, in dollars or otherwise? Because Internet access is provided free, traditional return metrics aren’t applicable here. However, providing free, high-speed Internet access to residents is one of several criteria scored in the tax credit application process. Innovative I.T. and Abode Communities both feel this was a contributing component in securing tax-credit financing. On-site Experience/ Lessons Learned What was the biggest challenge? Brian Horton, Innovative I.T.: Working with a multitude of subcontractors to ensure that all system requirements were communicated and accounted for during the design phase. For instance, the mechanical subcontractors had to understand the cooling specifications for the communications closets so they could remain at optimum operating temperatures. Service providers had to communicate and understand pathway requirements to ensure that all networking requirements were accounted for. Finally, designing inunit media cans with enough space to account for both existing and future equipment needs was critical. What was the biggest success? Horton: Having everything work when

we flipped the switch on opening the property. One highlight was being able to control the common-area entertainment options with a single remote control from the podium deck during the property’s opening celebration. Even though a number of entertainment, security, utility and photovoltaic components are integrated into the system, management was able to connect an iPod to the outdoor entertainment system and use the Control4 remote control to easily select a playlist. Often, in these types of deployments, consultants install tons of technology and then hand the property manager 20 remotes to control it all. The technology becomes so confusing that the property managers don’t end up using it. Here, it’s simple: one remote and easy, intuitive control of the entire system. What would you say to owners who want to deploy a similar network? What issues should they consider before they get started? Horton: Make sure you coordinate and work with a qualified network engineering firm and ask for references. Having a single organization responsible for ensuring that all the subs work together is critical. What is the property manager’s perspective on this installation? Has it been a success? What has been the response from residents? Horton: Although the property manager wasn’t involved in the physical implementation of this system, Abode is very focused on the types of technology it wants in its communities, including a goal of being able to monitor energy use – and production – at each of its properties from a central location. Having that type of vision provided a challenging, yet concrete goal for us to focus on during the design and construction process. Robin Hughes, Abode Communities: For us, this is a project that we’re extremely proud of. When we see how excited and grateful our residents are about this community, that’s a reward in itself. It’s why we do this work. v

March/April 2012 | www.broadbandcommunities.com | BROADBAND COMMUNITIES |

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MDU SHOWCASE

Fiber Pathways Preserve The View in Upscale High-Rise Owners of a luxury condominium community in Seattle chose 3M One Pass Fiber Pathways to elegantly conceal their new fiber network. By Linnea Wilkes ■ 3M Communication Markets Division

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he Grandview residential tower in Seattle is aptly named. The 27-story, luxury condominium community commands gorgeous, sweeping views of the Space Needle, Puget Sound and the Olympic Mountains. Inside the building, the interior view rivals the exterior panorama. The Grandview’s sleek, modern design and elegantly decorated common areas make it one of the most coveted addresses in downtown Seattle. When Grandview residents decided to upgrade their telecommunications services, they sought state-of-the-art technology at a good value. The homeowners association hired Elauwit Networks to build a new network to replace the building’s existing twisted copper wire and daisy-chained coaxial systems. Elauwit designed a fiber-to-the-home network to serve the building’s 108 units and deliver high-speed, triple-play service. However, when it came time to install the network, Elauwit reps realized that its go-to method for running fiber cable through hallways in multifamily buildings might not work for this upscale building. Elauwit typically uses an adhesive-backed, hard plastic, snapcover raceway. The raceway is about an inch wide and sticks out about an inch from the wall. Though an inch doesn’t seem like much, the raceway stood out enough to potentially visually mar the hallway decor. “The residents’ number one concern was aesthetics,” says Taylor Jones, chief technology officer for Elauwit Net-

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The residents’ message was loud and clear: “Yes, we want you to run fiber to every unit, but we really don’t want to see it.” you to run fiber to every unit, but we really don’t want to see it,’ so visual impact became a chief concern for us.” That’s when Elauwit called 3M.

works. “The Grandview is a high-end community, and residents weren’t interested in having a bulky piece of raceway on the wall. They told us, ‘Yes, we want

Practically Invisible Solutions Jones had read about the One Pass Fiber Pathway from 3M in a trade publication and thought it might be the right fit for the Grandview. He called 3M and ordered samples. At a design meeting with the Grandview homeowners association board of directors, he presented two options for the hallways: the snap-cover raceway and the One Pass. The One Pass Fiber Pathway is an adhesive-backed, surface-mount, horizontal cable pathway and drop-cable solution factory populated with 900 µm fiber. The duct and fiber are installed simultaneously in one pass around a hallway perimeter. The pathway adheres to a variety of wall surfaces and easily bends

About the Author Linnea Wilkes is a global MDU business development manager for 3M Communication Markets Division. Her expertise includes fiber optics and premises network architecture, and she helped launch the world’s first fiber optic pathway for MDUs. You can reach her at [email protected]. Learn more about the One Pass Fiber Pathway and the One Pass Mini Fiber Pathway at www.3M.com/OnePass.

| BROADBAND COMMUNITIES | www.broadbandcommunities.com | March/April 2012

MDU SHOWCASE around corners and beams. Low-profile and paintable, it can blend in with just about any decor. The board chose the 3M solution for the hallway without hesitation. “When you hold a traditional raceway and the One Pass product against a wall, the choice is obvious,” Jones said. “The One Pass Pathway is practically invisible.” Within the individual living units, Elauwit initially planned on using a traditional raceway to run fiber from the hallway to the optical network terminals (ONTs). Stapling cable was not an option, because the building’s walls are concrete. However, once residents saw the nearly invisible hallway solution from 3M, they insisted on having the same look for their living spaces. “Some of them were very adamant about it,” Jones said. “They really liked the One Pass look.” Elauwit called 3M and ordered samples of the 3M One Pass Mini Fiber Pathway, and dozens of residents requested that it be installed in their units. An extension of the hallway solution, the One Pass Mini is installed in a subscriber’s apartment from a point of entry in the hallway to a location near the provider’s ONT. Even smaller and sleeker than its hallway counterpart, it contains a single, ultra-bend-insensitive fiber capable of maintaining a 5 mm bend radius, which allows it to turn around sharp corners without affecting signal performance. Like the hallway solution, the One Pass Mini is low-profile and paintable, and it creates minimal visual impact. “After you paint it the color of the wall, you won’t even know the product is there,” Jones says. “The residents were really sold on that.”

Once residents saw the hallway solution, they wanted the same look for their living spaces. ways on all 27 floors in less than two weeks, cutting installation time by more than 50 percent. “Normally, installation would have taken us four to five weeks with a traditional raceway,” Jones says. “First you have to install the raceway; then you have to go back and run the fiber through it. The One Pass’s one-step process saved us a lot of time.” To speed up the process even more, 3M provided a technical service rep to train Elauwit’s installation crew on site.

“Within the first day, crew members were installing the pathway on their own,” Jones says. “The simple tools and the hands-on training by 3M really made it an easy product to install.” The quick, easy installation not only cut installation costs but also minimized disruption to Grandview residents. “The sooner we can get out of the hallway, the better,” Jones says. “The more we’re in the way, the more we aggravate the residents – our customers.” v

In the hallways outside the units, the One Pass Fiber Pathway from 3M to the wall, making fibe seamlessly conforms r installation quick and easy and saving an estima installation costs. ted 35 percent of

Once Grandvie w residents sa w the nearly in the same look visible hallway for their living solution, they spaces. insisted on

having

Quick and Easy Installation The One Pass Fiber Pathways for the hallway and the living units helped Elauwit meet its client’s requirement for a low-impact, aesthetically pleasing fiber conduit. The One Pass pathways easily adhered to the building’s concrete walls and blended in seamlessly with the interior decor. As an added bonus, the 3M pathways also saved Elauwit money on installation. It installed One Pass PathMarch/April 2012 | www.broadbandcommunities.com | BROADBAND COMMUNITIES |

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MDU Technology

MDU Solutions For Electric Vehicle Charging As electric vehicles begin to appear on the market, MDU residents will demand a new technology amenity to support them – secure, easily available car charging facilities. By Bryan J. Rader ■ Bandwidth Consulting LLC

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wners and developers of multifamily housing are always working to stay a step ahead of their current and prospective residents. Adding new amenities and features to satisfy the ever-changing tastes and desires of their consumers is key to this effort. Multiple dwelling-unit (MDU) residents today are increasingly focused on the environment and green technologies, according to Steve Sadler, vice president of strategic business services for Post Apartment Homes, one of the largest developers and operators of upscale multifamily communities in the United States. Sadler notes, “Many of our prospective residents are already asking about green living initiatives, and many say green living is a portion of their leasing decision. There’s somewhat of an expectation, particularly among our newer properties, that we offer green living.” The desire for green living extends to residents’ choice of cars and infrastructure to support them. Sadler says, “We have had several inquiries from residents who are thinking about buying electric or plug-in vehicles. We expect a steady increase in coming years.” What’s Driving the Drivers Internal research from NRG Energy forecasts that the U.S. electric passenger vehicle market will grow from 100,000 units in 2012 to more than 1.6 million a year by 2019. Sales of these vehicles will be driven by environmental concerns, high fuel costs and a growing recognition of the importance of energy

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independence. Iran’s recent threat to shut down the Strait of Hormuz, which caused the price of oil to quickly jump to more than $100 per barrel, underscored these concerns for many consumers, who may rethink their priorities in selecting their next vehicles. Nissan, the manufacturer of the first mass-market electric vehicle, the Nissan LEAF, expects typical electric vehicle (EV) owners to be in their mid-40s, with incomes averaging about $125,000 a year and daily round-trip drives of around 50 miles. Others expect younger customers who are eco-friendly, welleducated and value-oriented. Either way, these demographic groups make up large segments of the MDU marketplace. Many property owners are already adding electric vehicle charging stations to their communities for residents who are considering electric or plug-in hybrid vehicles. Recently, Equity Residential, owner and operator of more than 400 apartment communities, partnered with CarCharge Inc. to install car charging stations at two communities in Seattle, one in Boston and another in Washington, D.C. Post Apartment Homes deployed charging stations for residents with electric vehicles in one community

in 2011 and plans to deploy them at three more communities in 2012. MDU Charging Solutions To date, most electric charging stations have been designed to be permanently installed in garages, which usually have appropriate power sources. This design makes them suitable for single-family homes. Recently, however, charging solutions have begun to emerge that are specifically designed for multifamily installations. For example, NRG Energy’s eVgo network is providing 240-volt chargers for installation in residential communities to complement its network of high-powered, 480-volt, fast-charging stations strategically placed at retail establishments and its single-family home and workplace chargers. “Multifamily dwellings are an important segment of the market we want to serve,” says Arun Banskota, president of NRG EV Services. “Many earlyadopter MDU owners are trying to support EV charging by putting a single charger in a very visible spot. The problem is that if there are no EV owners in the community, [MDU owners] are paying a lot to take up a parking spot to meet a nonexistent demand.

About the Author Bryan Rader is CEO of Bandwidth Consulting LLC, which assists providers in the multifamily market. You can reach Bryan at [email protected] or at 636536-0011. Learn more at www.bandwidthconsultingllc.com. Bryan is also an adviser to NRG EV Services.

| BROADBAND COMMUNITIES | www.broadbandcommunities.com | March/April 2012

MDU Technology “We have a much more practical solution for apartment owners and developers. We prewire 10 to 15 parking spots to make them ready for EV charging stations. Then, within 48 hours of a resident’s buying a new EV or a new resident’s moving in with an EV, we install a dedicated charging station in a dedicated parking space.” Property owners bear the cost of prewiring their parking spaces, but eVgo pays to install the charging stations as consumers sign up for the monthly program. Brian Moorhead, director of the Ready for EV programs at eVgo, says, “Property owners are constantly looking for new technologies that give them a point of difference in their market while addressing residents’ specific needs. This concept of electric charging stations for multifamily housing may be early, but it has really gained momentum.” Companies such as eVgo are building their solutions around the needs of building owners and developers, us-

ing a modular approach that is easy to adjust for resident demand. “On new builds, the marginal cost of wiring 10 to 20 spots is virtually nothing. On a retrofit, it can begin at around $10,000,” explains Banskota, adding, “We don’t charge the facility owner for the electricity charging costs or the chargers.” Howard Porteus, project manager of Huffines Communities in Dallas, Texas, recently installed the eVgo solution in a new-construction project, Hebron 121 Apartments in Lewisville, Texas. Porteus says, “We launched it in phase one and will be incorporating several more chargers – and, hopefully, the capability of in-garage chargers – in phase two. We think it is an amazing concept, but [it has] not [been] utilized so far. Residents do think it is cool, and we point it out to every prospective customer.” Calming Range Anxiety One factor that limits the sales of EVs may be consumers’ perception that their driving range is limited, a phenomenon

sometimes called “range anxiety.” “eVgo is all about range confidence,” says Banskota. “Every morning when you leave your home, you have a full charge, which is more than double what most drivers use in a day. If you drive farther than expected and need a bit more range, our comprehensive charging network is there with unlimited use as part of a fixed-price subscription plan.” eVgo solutions for MDUs generally range from $59 to $89 a month per vehicle for the Complete plan, which includes access to charging stations throughout the metropolitan area as well as in users’ home parking spaces. Real estate owners and developers should plan accordingly as more of their residents (and potential residents) consider buying electric or hybrid plug-in vehicles. This trend may well move from the early-adopter stage in select urban centers to the mass market across the United States in a few short years. v

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March/April 2012 | www.broadbandcommunities.com | BROADBAND COMMUNITIES |

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FTTH INDUSTRY LEADERS

Q&A With Pedro Correa, Vice President, Verizon Enhanced Communities Over the last five years, Verizon Enhanced Communities installed FiOS services in MDUs with more than 2 million units and achieved a penetration rate of about 30 percent. The business unit’s new VP aims to win over the other 70 percent.

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n February 2012, Pedro Correa was named vice president of Verizon Enhanced Communities (VEC), a unit of Verizon that is focused on marketing the company’s  FiOS voice,  high-speed Internet and TV services to tenants and property managers of multidwellingunit (MDU) properties. Correa is a 37-year veteran of Verizon who most recently was president of the business unit responsible for Verizon’s directory assistance and related services. Recently, Broadband Communities spoke with Correa about his plans for VEC and the future of FiOS in MDUs. Highlights of that conversation follow.

companies advertise a certain amount of speed, but during the busy hour, it’s not there. The FCC has confirmed that we actually have the speeds we advertise. What I want to do is make sure we offer high-touch along with the high-tech – an end-to-end customer value experience.

Pedro Correa

Broadband Communities: What do you bring from your prior experience with Verizon to your new position at VEC? Pedro Correa: My background has always been in customer service, one way or another. I spent the last two and a half years in the 411 business – actually, I spent a total of 12 years in that space, counting earlier stints – and before that, I was in a multicultural organization responsible for delivering FiOS in Spanish, Cantonese, Mandarin, Korean and Vietnamese. We also had two centers supporting hearing-impaired and vision-impaired customers. We provided end-to-end in-language experience – the bill, the collateral, the online experience, services, and product, even video on demand, were all inlanguage. There are 22 percent of MDU residents who speak Spanish or other [non-English] languages, so multiculturalism will be a focus for me at VEC, too – reaching that base through both content and customer experience. I’m also creating a customer experience manager position for VEC. That’s one area I believe is an opportunity for our business. We already have a great product in FiOS. A lot of

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BBC: VEC already has a good track record with property owners. Is there any area where you’ve found a shortcoming? PC: I don’t believe customers always understand the full value of FiOS. For example, on the FiOS TV platform, in addition to great picture quality and high-definition content, there are widgets for many other services that people don’t even know they have. If you’re an NFL fan, you probably know we have the Red Zone, but how about FiOS Movie Night? Every Friday, there’s a movie deal that’s very competitive, cheaper than going to the video store – HD movies for $2.99. When the end user turns the TV on, a message should appear on the screen for 30 seconds saying, “Movie Night on Friday, $2.99” – so you’d be using the FiOS platform to promote the service, rather than telling people to go to the information channel. To me, people don’t do that. They don’t even remember what channel it is. We could also do a better job during the install of taking people through all the functions on the remote control. A lot of people buy FiOS for the HD and the picture clarity, but I’m not sure many customers can go beyond those two things. When I’ve done customer focus groups, some people talk about their bad experience with cable or how good the FiOS picture quality is. So there’s a huge opportunity for creating customer value through some other services I don’t think customers have connected with yet. In the MDU space, that’s definitely prevalent.

| BROADBAND COMMUNITIES | www.broadbandcommunities.com | March/April 2012

FTTH INDUSTRY LEADERS New FiOS Applications BBC: Verizon’s Concierge platform available to MDUs has so many services riding on it – everything from package delivery tracking to pizza ordering. What will you do to make that more understandable to property managers? PC: Our early assessment is that it’s another huge opportunity like the widgets on FiOS TV. You can use Concierge to check local restaurant menus and order from them, to see what’s happening in your building, or to reserve the clubhouse for a birthday party. Just as people buy cars with all sorts of bells and whistles and use only about 20 percent of them, Concierge is still largely unknown. People haven’t really spent a lot of time understanding its value and using all the features associated with it. My team is spending time in this area, stepping up communications about it. It’s a combination of training the sales force and training the building staffs – on my side, I’m driving the sales force to make sure we’re doing a good job. We have to communicate to building owners that there’s no additional cost for them and that Concierge enables communications and social networking within their communities. BBC: Can you sell home monitoring services in high-rises? They’re pretty well protected against intruders. PC: Energy-control services are an important part of Verizon’s Home Monitoring and Control, allowing customers to remotely control thermostats and lighting while also monitoring the energy used in their households and seeing all the watts they’re using. Live cameras give folks in high-rises the ability to check what’s going on in their homes while they’re away. BBC: Do property owners understand they can use the energy monitoring services, too? PC: For the property owners, building Home Monitoring and Control into their units is an important amenity that makes properties more attractive to potential tenants. It means higher occupancy rates, higher revenues and demonstration of support for a greener lifestyle.

Getting to a penetration rate above 50 percent, which we have in Keller, Texas – the first FiOS community – will take a lot of hard work. Winning New Customers BBC: Verizon has said it won’t be seeking any more FiOS franchises. Are there still opportunities to increase the number of customers in the footprint that exists today? PC: Currently, there are about 5.4 million MDU residences that could eventually get FiOS. They’re in locations where we’ve put fiber along their streets. And, so far, we have gained agreement with property owners to open 2.1 million MDU residences for sale of FiOS. That leaves us plenty of headroom for growth. In our business plan for 2012, we have plans for MDU residences passed to go from 5.4 million to 5.7 million and open for sale to go from 2.1 million to 2.4 million. But even without those extra 300,000 homes, only around 30 percent of the MDU residences open for sale today are subscribers, so I have a 70 percent market opportunity to go after. We’ve got to market to them and close that sale. We’re very happy with where we are in a short period of time with FiOS. We’ve grown by leaps and bounds, going from zero to nearly 5 million customers in a space where we didn’t even have a product. To be the new kid on the block, getting a 30 percent penetration rate is a good result, but the second part of the race is also important. Getting to a penetration rate above 50 percent, which we have in Keller, Texas, the first FiOS community, will take a lot of hard work. So we have to market to the base and introduce enhanced services both to sell to that 70 percent and to hold onto the 30 percent. We hope the home monitoring and control service will add value for customers. We introduced it in the fourth quarter of 2011, and the early returns look pretty good.

BBC: We’ve written about Verizon’s effort to market FiOS to young “techknowledgeables” in MDUs. Are you planning other targeted marketing efforts? PC: The “MustHaveFiOS” marketing plan you’re referring to was launched in D.C. last year and then expanded to New York, Philadelphia, Dallas and Los Angeles. It targets the young whippersnappers aged 25 to 39. As I mentioned, we’re also planning to market specifically to multicultural groups. A third group is seniors, 55 and over – we’re going to tailor a marketing plan for them that you’ll see in the middle of 2012 or in the third quarter. That’s a growing community. They require specific channels – they’re not looking for unlimited channels but specifically for movie channels and video on demand. On the data side, they’re looking for 15 to 20 Mbps, not for 100 Mbps. BBC: Are you looking for new ways to work with property owners to market FiOS services? PC: One opportunity for us would be more partnering on marketing messages. There has to be a benefit for both parties, so we have to convince the buildings that cobranding with us creates a value proposition. Some developers already understand that FiOS adds value to their properties, so they’re interested. For others, we need to show them that FiOS makes it easier for them to market their properties. BBC: Do you feel any need to compete with cable companies by offering door fees to property owners? PC: Usually, the value of the FiOS product outweighs the need to do that. There are isolated cases where we’ve offered incentives at the property level, but in

March/April 2012 | www.broadbandcommunities.com | BROADBAND COMMUNITIES |

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FTTH INDUSTRY LEADERS Our strategy is to move customers from copper to FiOS within our own territory. It will mean a lot in terms of maintenance cost savings. most cases we’ve been successful without having to do that. BBC: Verizon has done a lot of work with vendors to improve FTTH technology, especially in MDUs, and to push costs down. Are there still more opportunities for cost savings? PC: We’re continuing to make advancements – improving fiber, using splice-free connectors, introducing desktop ONTs – and there are still some areas where we believe we can drive costs down and provide additional options for consumers. Directions for Growth BBC: Is any part of the country prime territory for MDUs?

PC: The Northeast. Just on the basis of pure numbers, that represents 70 percent of the opportunity. Other areas of the country – Florida and California especially – are starting to grow because large numbers of housing foreclosures have created rental opportunities. BBC: There have been rumors that VEC would become the “CLEC from Hell” in areas outside Verizon territory where fiber was available. PC: We’re not anywhere close to that strategy. Our strategy is to move customers from copper to FiOS within our own territory. If the copper plant has really gotten old and if fiber is already there, we want to see them switch to fiber. It will

mean a lot in terms of maintenance cost savings. Ten percent of the copper base generates 70 percent of the dispatches. It’s still too early to tell what the Verizon Wireless purchase of spectrum from cable companies will mean in the long term. Out of franchise, selling wireless services will be part of our strategy. It’s too early to discuss what it will mean for us in franchise. BBC: At the FTTH Conference last fall, Virginia Ruesterholz talked about wireless/wireline integration (particularly LTE and FiOS) as the next big challenge for Verizon. How do you see this affecting VEC? PC: Obviously, we can bundle wireless and wireline products and create a quadruple play. But beyond that, we’re looking at it and meeting with the wireless side to see if there are other opportunities to enhance the consumer experience in the multifamily market. There will be opportunity to create a collaboration with wireless in this space. It’s coming. v

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FTTH INDUSTRY LEADERS

Q&A With Heather Gold, President, FTTH Council North America The new FTTH Council president hopes to help members articulate the business case for the value of fiber all the way to the home.

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n November 2011, the FTTH Council North America announced the appointment of Heather Burnett Gold as president. Gold, who has worked for more than 27 years in the telecom industry, was most recently the senior vice president for external affairs for XO Communications, a business communications provider. Recently, Broadband Communities had the opportunity to interview Gold about her vision for the fiber-tothe-home industry and the role of the FTTH Council.

to XO Communications, where I did all the public policy and access management work.

He

ather Gold Broadband Communities: Tell us about your background. What kinds of experiences have you had in the telecommunications industry? Heather Burnett Gold: I’ve been in telecom for more than 27 years, and I’ve always worked for small, entrepreneurial companies. I started in the nascent long-distance business. After working my way up through various companies, I ran a trade association of long-distance companies. From 1993 to 1998, I was president of the Association for Local Telecommunications Services, representing competitive local exchange carriers (CLECs) during the period surrounding the passage of the Telecommunications Act. I went on to work for a CLEC, then set up a consulting firm [KDW Group] and then went

Look at Google in Kansas City, at Gig.U, at Chattanooga, at Sonic.net, and you’ll see the demand for high-bandwidth capabilities that only FTTH can satisfy. 26

BBC: How does this experience shape your perspective on the FTTH Council? HBG: It gave me a keen appreciation of the smaller company and how to make a business go. One other thing I’ve learned, coming out of the CLEC business, is that it’s very important to control your own network. XO did control a large portion of its network but not the last-mile access. That makes me really appreciate what the FTTH companies are doing – providing the access to customers and serving their high-bandwidth needs. Nobody on the enterprise side questions the need for fiber all the way, and enterprises aren’t even using the amount of bandwidth that residential customers need. BBC: The FTTH market in the United States appears to be at an inflection point, with Verizon wrapping up the FiOS build, the broadband stimulus money all awarded and little new housing being built. Do you see any encouraging signs in the market? HBG: Yes, I see a lot of encouraging signs. Look at what’s going on with Google in Kansas City. Look at what’s going on with Gig.U. Look at how well Chattanooga has done. Look at a little entrant like Sonic.net. Look at any of those, and you’ll see the demand for high-bandwidth capabilities that only FTTH can satisfy. There may be a lull right now until construction catches up, but I don’t think the demand has abated. The long-term economics and ever-accelerating bandwidth needs that will drive end users to fiber have not changed. I just think you need to look at what’s going on in the economy, and internationally, to see that fiber to the home has got to be where to put resources. The stimulus program was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that won’t come along again, but the many projects it spawned assist in establishing the

| BROADBAND COMMUNITIES | www.broadbandcommunities.com | March/April 2012

FTTH INDUSTRY LEADERS business case for why fiber is so important. Now it’s necessary to build on that base. BBC: What will it take to get the industry moving again? HBG: Actually, I think the industry is moving but not fast enough for economic development needs. I think a “gig envy” type of message is needed. A lot of communities that want fiber to the home feel they don’t know how to get it. It’s important to think of ways to channel that desire into an action plan so communities can understand how to aggregate demand, create positive investment climates for telecom companies and then make a pitch for companies to come and build fiber. People are thinking that the broadband stimulus program is gone and the Universal Service Fund (USF) is changing [by adopting rules less favorable to FTTH], and they’re feeling frustrated. We need to find a way to channel that frustration and convert it into progress, to help people get through that and come up with an action plan. BBC: What can the FTTH Council do to help this along? HBG: We can help communities identify the steps necessary to create that kind of action plan. We can help our members work with those communities as well, so it becomes a win-win for everyone. Also, we have to keep getting the message out there. There’s a lot of misinformation about the cost to deploy fiber versus what it can bring to a community in terms of development. I think we’ll be reaching out more to communities than we have in the past. BBC: You just returned from the FTTH Council Europe conference in Munich. What did you see going on with other countries’ deployment of fiber? HBG: There’s a lot of buzz. The FTTH Council Europe conference had more than 3,300 registrants. It was very exciting to see so much interest in FTTH. I think everybody there wants it; now they’re struggling with the same issue we are – how to get it.

The industry is moving but not fast enough for economic development needs. A “gig envy” type of message is needed to channel that desire into an action plan. BBC: Did you see any low-hanging fruit for coordinating with the other regional FTTH Councils? HBG: Yes, we formalized an agreement for an FTTH Council global alliance, which includes the Councils in Europe, Asia-Pacific, the Middle East and North Africa, Africa and North America. We’ll share information, discuss trends, and – while thinking locally – articulate globally the importance of FTTH deployment. BBC: The FTTH Council North America began as a vendor organization but now includes many smaller service providers. Are you are interested in bringing in other types of members – for example, nontraditional deployers such as Google? HBG: I think there’s a place for Google in our membership. There’s a place for any entity that is deploying or considering deploying FTTH. Our goal is to reach out and involve as many companies as possible that are involved in FTTH deployment. A lot more companies are involved than are members of the Council, so we obviously have to continue marketing ourselves and building up the value proposition for potential and existing members. For vendors, we have to make sure we’re giving them proper marketing tools. For service providers, we have to give them the latest information on how to develop and implement their FTTH networks and get better revenue from their networks. For consultants, we have to increase their exposure to the vendors and service providers they’re trying to sell their services to. There’s a lot of valuable information to share in terms of best practices. BBC: What about organizations, such as US Ignite and Gig.U, that are trying

to stimulate FTTH deployment rather than deploy fiber themselves? HBG: There are many ways we can and will be working with them. I don’t think it’s necessary that they be Council members – we can work with them as partners. BBC: You’re based in Washington and you have a history in regulatory and public policy. Do you foresee taking an active role in representing the Council’s interests in Washington? HBG: Absolutely. I’m well known to public policymakers in D.C., and I feel comfortable walking the halls of the FCC, Capitol Hill, the NTIA and the RUS. Just my being here and knowing those people is a way to give more visibility to the FTTH Council. Of course, we’ll focus our heavy advocacy in technical areas where we have special expertise rather than competing with the organizations that are doing general industry lobbying. BBC: What are the major policy issues that you foresee addressing over the next couple of years? HBG: The big ones for our service provider members will be the evolution of the USF and how that impacts our members who are incumbent local exchange carriers and their ability to build out fiber. But right now, we’re sort of at a lull in the action, with policy issues awaiting the outcome of the general election. BBC: Do you have a vision for the FTTH Council? HBG: My vision is that FTTH should become the accepted standard for what every community should expect to have in terms of broadband – and that when people think about experts in FTTH, they should come to us immediately. v

March/April 2012 | www.broadbandcommunities.com | BROADBAND COMMUNITIES |

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FTTH CONFERENCE MUNICH

Is Europe Ready For the Zettabyte Era? At Europe’s premier fiber optic industry event, held in Munich in February, the message was clear: Europe is beginning to recognize the imperative of investing in fiber to the premises to ensure its economic competitiveness. By Olaf Storaasli ■ DSM Functional Materials

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he mood at the European FTTH Conference could not have been stated more clearly than it was by Chris Holden, president of the FTTH Council Europe. He said that, though last year’s gathering in Milan was notable for its discussions of “Why FTTH?” the debate in 2012 had shifted to “How FTTH?” DSM Functional Materials, which supplies UV-curable coatings for the production of optical fiber and cable, used the occasion to host its third annual Designed for the Future executive roundtable in Europe. DSM contributed to the debate on how best to engineer Europe’s competitiveness by bringing together leading minds from regulation and policymaking to telecom service providers, vendors and advisors from five continents to address Europe’s unique issues and challenges, suggest remedies and assess opportunities for breaking through to the zettabyte era. Throughout the evening, four major themes elicited creative and provocative opinion: • The mainstream telecom industry is finally embracing FTTx. • Who needs a killer app when data consumption is expanding exponentially? • A case still exists for public investment in all-fiber networks. • Fiber networks are increasingly critical for public services and economic success.

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European fiber deployments may be gathering steam: BT, France Telecom and Deutsche Telekom have all made bold public statements about their aims to accelerate FTTH/B rollout. The Mainstream Telecom Industry Is Finally Embracing FTTx In previous years, there has been much hand-wringing over the reluctance of Europe’s big incumbent telcos to invest significantly in fiber to the premises. The loudest complaints have been leveled at operators in Western Europe, where penetration has consistently lagged Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), Scandinavia and, increasingly, Southern Europe. According to FTTH Council Europe research, only 600,000 extra subscribers were added across Europe in the past year. In the FTTH Council Europe’s list of top 20 nations for FTTH/B penetration, the highest-placed Western Euro-

pean economy, Portugal, comes in at a lowly 11th. The only other Western European economies in the top 20 are the Netherlands, France and Italy at 13th, 17th and 19th respectively. Still, there are grounds for optimism that deployment is gathering steam. For one thing, BT, France Telecom and Deutsche Telekom have all recently made bold public statements about their aims to accelerate FTTH/B rollout. At the same time, there is also a sense that fiber is finally working its way into some marketing departments’ DNA. Slick advertising campaigns based on the virtues of fiber are currently running in a number of countries, including the U.K. Another trigger for increased activity by the big beasts of Europe is activity

About the Author Olaf Storaasli is global marketing manager for fiber optic materials at DSM Functional Materials. He can be reached at [email protected]. DSM Functional Materials is a developer of high-performance functional coatings and composite materials and the world’s leading supplier of UV-curable coatings, including the latest generation DeSolite Supercoatings, for the production of optical fiber and cable. Find out more at www.supercoatings.com.

| BROADBAND COMMUNITIES | www.broadbandcommunities.com | March/April 2012

FTTH CONFERENCE MUNICH further down the food chain. Roundtable participants heard that one firm based in Norway – Altibox – currently accounted for 80 percent of all FTTH connections in that country. Given that Altibox was having success in the kinds of semirural areas that FTTH is not normally associated with, the results were even more impressive. The upshot, according to Altibox, has been careful scrutiny of its go-to-market strategy by incumbent Telenor, followed by a marked ramp-up in Telenor’s sales and marketing efforts. Lending credence to comments made by certain delegates at the conference that the best way to get people to pay for FTTH/B would be to give it to them free for 100 days and then take it away, some participants offered anecdotal evidence that, in some countries, businesses were starting to relocate to be able to get fiber connections. Although Scandinavia has been a stalwart supporter of FTTH/B for some years, the European region’s most stellar performance came from Spain, which had the largest growth in household penetration in 2011 – an increase of 184 perent from the year before, urged on perhaps by the rapid expansion of services in neighboring Portugal and in Turkey. Who Needs a Killer App? The number of FTTH/B connections in Russia and CEE equals the number in the whole of the EU-27. This regional disparity disproves assertions that, to succeed commercially, FTTH/B needs new killer applications. Its popularity in places such as Lithuania, which topped FTTH Council Europe’s Top 20 penetration table again this year, is based squarely on its ability to deliver the kinds of services that Western European consumers and businesses have become used to but now face losing because of bandwidth constraints.

To get people to pay for fiber, delegates said, give it to them free for 100 days, then take it away. In some European countries, businesses are starting to relocate to get fiber connections. Fiber’s popularity in Russia and CEE also reflects how much poorer the copper infrastructure is in those countries than in Western European countries. One of the big talking points among roundtable participants was that, perhaps counterintuitively, the brilliant applications in the areas of e-health, distance learning, business and entertainment on display at the ICM conference center in Munich may drive uptake less than the simple reality that copper broadband networks are straining to cope with current demand for bandwidth ­– and that, for them to cope with future demand, urgent action is needed. Leif Aarthun Ims, CEO of Altibox, said that overwhelmingly, demand for FTTH/B came from families’ wanting to access the Internet using multiple devices at the same time rather than from one or two mega-hungry applications. Other participants agreed that fiber connections are most likely to be made by households with young people in them, even if those young people do not personally control household budgets. Public Investment in All-Fiber Networks Because sovereign debt is Europe’s macroeconomic megatrend for 2011 and 2012, the issue of public funding is emotional. Nowhere is the debate so clearcut as in Germany, the conference host nation. Many roundtable participants argued that the German government’s desire to invest in FTTH/B has been

Brilliant new applications are less important than the fact that copper networks are straining to cope with current bandwidth demands.

dampened by a belief that the country’s copper infrastructure is adequate to meet current bandwidth demands and there is no need to invest in more bandwidth. The consensus among participants was that, although this view was genuinely widespread, it emanated more from the German incumbent telco’s shortterm investment horizon than from a logical assessment of future bandwidth needs. Indeed, the host city, Munich, won plaudits from participants for bringing FTTx to every home and business in the city center. That investment, funded entirely by the state through its wholly owned utility firm rather than by taxpayers, illustrated the difficulties that private companies, vis-à-vis publicly owned entities, face in justifying longterm investments. Although participants agreed that without public support, Europe stands to lose compared with other regions of the world, they disagreed about how this support should be provided. Policymakers, citing Europe’s legacy of dominant incumbent operators, argued passionately that European-level support for operators to deploy FTTH/B should be tied to operators’ agreeing to unbundle their services. Many other participants argued that unbundling acts as a disincentive to investment and that monopolies should be viewed – as they are in China, South Korea and other countries – as a necessary evil to get fiber deployment going. Meanwhile, there were hints that any impasse between business and the European Commission might not last long. With Europe’s Digital Agenda targets for 2020 looking increasingly optimistic, participants familiar with the Commission’s efforts stressed that there was room for more public-private partnerships

March/April 2012 | www.broadbandcommunities.com | BROADBAND COMMUNITIES |

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FTTH CONFERENCE MUNICH

not so much whether demand existed as how best to service this demand. Verizon is reporting 80 percent fewer trouble calls with fiber than in its legacy business, but some participants urged caution in concluding that all fiber is created equal, and participants unanimously agreed that product quality affects network reliability. One high-level representative from the European Commission’s Information Society directorate general stressed that the Commission considered the issue of network reliability extremely important, as Europe’s fiber networks were expected to be able to support the next phase of European integration, whether

that is harmonized health care, pensions or social services. Others concurred that the importance of network reliability was more acute than ever, given the central role fiber would play in Europe’s economic recovery. As Rob Crowell, senior business director for DSM Functional Materials, put it, “We are reaching an inflection point in the number of governments, businesses and consumers that now see the benefits that fiber to the premises can deliver, whether for home working, e-government or simply entertainment. As a result, FTTx demand is shifting from being ‘nice to have’ to ‘must have’ with the capability to create jobs, ensure vital public services and entrench innovative, competitive economies. Telecom operators must adapt to this shift not just by building networks capable of supporting demand today but also by future-proofing them for tomorrow, because with so much at stake, failure in the field will not be tolerated.” v

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The European Commission considers network reliability extremely important, as fiber networks must support the next phase of integration. in rolling out FTTH/B and that the Commission stood ready to provide more support in terms of investment and regulation to kick-start progress. Fiber for Public Services and Economic Success Discussion about technology – and, more specifically, about which technology should be used to optimize networks and future-proof them against failure – was lively. Echoing Chris Holden’s comments on the change in the FTTH/B debate from “Why FTTH?” to “How FTTH?” the roundtable participants said that, with the case for fiber much more clear-cut today, the issue was

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| BROADBAND COMMUNITIES | www.broadbandcommunities.com | March/April 2012

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State-of-the-art innovations in  fiber optic networking, perfected. When your project demands the very best...

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Broadband Communities th Annual List Of Leading Broadband Technologies and Services

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The latest offerings from top broadband hardware and software suppliers, distributors and service providers.

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3M Communication Markets Division 6801 Riverplace Blvd. Austin, TX 78726 P: 512-984-4641 Contact: Linnea Wilkes E: [email protected] URL: www.3m.com/OnePass

Segments of Industry: MDU/PCO, Telcos, Hospitality, Other – Education/Health Care

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Products/Services: Passives ­– Inside Plant, Passives ­– Outside Plant, Customer-Premises Equipment, Structured Wiring In 2011, 3M introduced the newest addition to its 3M One Pass Fiber Pathway family of products, the 3M One Pass Mini Fiber Pathway. The One Pass Mini is a low-profile, single-fiber cable pathway solution designed to take fiber beyond the hallway into a living unit discreetly and with minimal subscriber disruption. Both the One Pass Fiber Pathway hallway solution and the One Pass Mini utilize exclusive 3M adhesive technol-

March/April 2012 | www.broadbandcommunities.com | BROADBAND COMMUNITIES |

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hot products ogy, which ensures reliable installation on a wide variety of surfaces, even painted or sealed concrete. Together, the 3M One Pass Fiber Pathway and the 3M One Pass Mini Fiber Pathway, both terminated with the high-performance 3M No Polish Connector, provide a complete, costeffective and aesthetically pleasing fiber solution for MDUs, both inside and outside the living unit – the Total Package. Network operators and building owners around the globe have it. Do you?

ADTRAN

901 Explorer Blvd. Huntsville, AL 35806 P: 256-963-6223 F: 256-963-7916 Contact: Kevin Morgan E: [email protected] URL: www.adtran.com/access Segments of Industry: MDU/PCO, Telcos, MSOs, Hospitality, Municipalities Products/Services: Active Electronics – Wireline; Active Electronics – Wireless; Customer-Premises Equipment; Planning, Design or Construction; Back-Office Software The ADTRAN Total Access 5000 is designed to help service providers bridge the gap between existing and next-generation networks. It is a carrier-class multiservice access and aggregation platform that supports both legacy and emerging service interfaces over copper and fiber. Environmentally hardened, the Total Access 5000 is designed for deployment in central offices, remote terminals or remote node locations, providing flexible copper and fiber termination options based on network applications. ADTRAN is reinventing the access network by integrating high-bandwidth capabilities for optical networking at the edge. It is time to migrate WDM, DWDM, OTN, SONET, ROADMs and other high-performance optical services to the edge of the network and integrate them with DSL, Carrier Ethernet, GPON, Ethernet fiber to the home and other access solutions. This evolution allows operators to rapidly and costeffectively manage the bandwidth explosion at the edge of the network.

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Advanced Media Technologies 3150 SW 15th St. Deerfield Beach, FL 33442 P: 954-427-5711 F: 954-427-9688 Contact: Rob Narzisi E: [email protected] URL: www.amt.com

Segments of Industry: MDU/PCO, Telcos, MSOs, Hospitality, Municipalities Products/Services: Active Electronics – Wireline, Video Headends and Related Equipment, Passives – Outside Plant, Passives – Inside Plant, Customer-Premises Equipment, Test Equipment ATX UCrypt – HDTV for hotel made easy and affordable The UCrypt product offering from AMT and ATX Networks is designed to support system operators with the delivery of content into hospitality and bulk accounts. UCrypt is a clean and simple, “no set-tops required” solution that transitions HD/SD content on the existing HFC network to Pro:Idiom encrypted or inthe-clear content and delivers into hospitality or bulk account environments.

Anritsu

1155 B Collins Blvd. #100 Richardson, TX 75081 P: 214-605-0638 Contact: Laura Edwards E: [email protected] URL: www.anritsuco.com/OTDR/ Segments of Industry: MDU/PCO, Telcos, MSOs, Municipalities Products/Services: Test Equipment Introducing the first handheld OTDR that does not compromise performance – the new µOTDR from Anritsu. With performance that rivals traditional OTDRs that are four times the size and more than double the price, the Network Master MT9090A µOTDR has created a new class of test instruments. It features 2 cm resolution for accurate mapping of events, dead zones of less than 1 meter (3 feet) and a dynamic range of up to 38dB – enough to test over 150 km (90+ miles) or PON-based FTTx networks featuring splits of

| BROADBAND COMMUNITIES | www.broadbandcommunities.com | March/April 2012

hot products up to 1x64. The MT9090A µOTDR also takes portability to a new level by being the first handheld OTDR that truly fits in the palm of your hand. The MT9090A with MU909014x/15x module represents a new era in optical fiber testing!

AT&T Connected Communities 2180 Lake Blvd. Atlanta, GA 30319 P: 404-829-8895 F: 404-829-8818 Contact: Thuy Woodall E: [email protected] URL: www.att.com/communities

ATX Networks

1-501 Clements Rd. W. Ajax, ON L15 7H4 Canada P: 814-502-5409 F: 905-427-1964 Contact: Tim Buck E: [email protected] URL: www.atxnetworks.com Segments of Industry: MDU/PCO, Telcos, MSOs, Hospitality, Municipalities Products/Services: Video Headends and Related Equipment, Passives – Outside Plant, Passives – Inside Plant, Customer-Premises Equipment

Segments of Industry: MDU/PCO Products/Services: Internet and Video Services/ Programming AT&T Connected Communities is a specialized division of AT&T dedicated to creating alliances with apartment ownership and management groups, single-family builders, developers and real estate investment trusts within our 22-state service area. As a leading global provider of high-speed Internet, advanced TV, home phone service and wireless communication services, we have a mission to develop reliable technology solutions that bring AT&T’s complete offering of the latest communications and entertainment services to your community and residents. Aligning with AT&T Connected Communities, backed by a single point of contact, ensures a rewarding marketing partnership and seamless technology deployment while increasing the value of your community. To learn more, visit www.att.com/communities.

Atlantic Engineering Group PO Box 790 Braselton, GA 30517 P: 706-654-2298 Contact: Chris Smith E: [email protected] URL: www.atlanticinc.cc

Segments of Industry: Municipalities Products/Services: Planning, Design or Construction Atlantic, founded in 1996, designs and builds fiber communications networks. This outside-plant specialist is headquartered in Braselton, Ga., but deploys in-house personnel and on-site project managers globally. Atlantic has completed the design and/or build for more than 100 networks, including more than 30 fiber-to-the-home projects as well as many HFC builds, metropolitan networks and wide-area networks. Clients include municipalities, electric utilities, cooperatives and government agencies. The company is an “all in” service provider for fiber optic network needs.

The DVIS/DigiVu multichannel encoding and transmission platforms from ATX Networks are ideal for (1) cost-effective encoding, multiplexing and IP transmission in headends and hub sites; (2) headend consolidation and IP backhaul of local content; (3) IP backhaul of PEG content; and (4) insertion of local content into IPTV-based environments. They support SD/HD and MPEG-2/H.264 encoding and are available in multiple platforms, such as MDU-hardened designs and rackmounted solutions, for multiple applications. They offer plugin scalability (1-2, 1-4, 1-8 and 1-10 programs) and are very cost-effective. These products are easy to maintain and manage (VLAN device management over same content delivery network) and have copper-based and/or optical transmission options (SFP-based). The DVISf (Fiber) is ATX’s new optical DVIS version. It incorporates an optical transmitter and optional EDFAs for insertion of local video content directly into an FTTx-based architecture. Visit http://atxnetworks.com/cable_tv_products/ mdu_solutions/digital-video-insertion/ ATX Networks has expanded its UCrypt product offering, which is designed to support operators with the delivery of content into hospitality and bulk MDU accounts to address virtually any deployment architecture and distribution application. The UCrypt QAM to QAM product – designed to transition content from the HFC plant and retransmit into an MDU or hotel in Pro:Idiom/ clear QAM format – has now been expanded to support up to 60 decrypted programs and up to 32 output QAMs. The IP

March/April 2012 | www.broadbandcommunities.com | BROADBAND COMMUNITIES |

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hot products output version of the UCrypt, which is ideal for operators that want to serve IPTV-based hospitality or commercial accounts, has also been expanded to support up to 60 decrypted programs. ATX has IP to Pro:Idiom QAM and IP to Pro:Idiom IP versions of the UCrypt product for operators that choose to deploy Pro:Idiom encrypted content in a more centralized manner. The newest additions are the IP-to-analog version and the new 16-channel Lite version. Visit http://atxnetworks.com/cable_tv_products/ mdu_solutions/bulk-qam-to-qam-gige-analog-mdu/

Blonder Tongue Laboratories Inc. One Jake Brown Rd. Old Bridge, NJ 08857 P: 800-523-6049 F: 732-679-1886 Contact: Lauren Yesler E: [email protected] URL: www.blondertongue.com

Segments of Industry: MDU/PCO, Telcos, MSOs, Hospitality, Municipalities Products/Services: Video Headends and Related Equipment, gldsad-qrtrpageFINAL.pdf 6/18/09 10:39:16 AM Training

Scheduled for release in 2Q2012 is Blonder Tongue’s model HDE-2H/2S-QAM, the company’s fourth-generation MPEG-2 HD encoder. The new encoder features a total of four input programs from two HDMI (HDCP not supported), two HD-SDI and four component video input connections and provides simultaneous outputs in QAM, IP and ASI. The encoder supports Dolby Digital AC-3 audio encoding and closed captioning. It is also equipped with an Emergency Alert System interface. Comprehensive remote monitoring and control is accomplished using any standard Web browser via 10/100Base-T Ethernet connection. To learn more about the latest MPEG-2 and H.264 encoding products that provide high-performance yet cost-effective solutions to system operators, please visit us at www.blondertongue.com.

Calix

1035 N. McDowell Blvd. Petaluma, CA 94954 P: 707-766-3000 F: 707-283-3100 Contact: David Russell E: [email protected] URL: www.calix.com Segments of Industry: MDU/PCO, Telcos, MSOs, Hospitality, Municipalities Products/Services: Active Electronics – Wireline, Customer-Premises Equipment

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The Calix GPON-8x card doubles the GPON port capacity of the E7-20 ESAP, allowing service providers to efficiently serve more than 5,000 GPON subscribers with a 32-way split and more than 10,000 GPON subscribers with a 64-way split. The E7-20’s 2-terabit backplane and nonblocking throughput capacity, combined with Calix 700GE ONTs, allows any of these subscribers to receive up to 1 Gbps of downstream and upstream capacity, enabling a vast array of potential service options. Each port on an GPON-8x card can be separately provisioned with a pluggable optical in-

| BROADBAND COMMUNITIES | www.broadbandcommunities.com | March/April 2012

hot products terface module (OIM) so that service providers can scale their capital investment to meet subscriber demand.

Charles Industries

5600 Apollo Dr. Rolling Meadows, IL 60008 P: 847-806-6300 F: 847-806-6231 Contact: Brad Wackerlin E: [email protected] URL: www.charlesindustries.com/main/telecom.html Segments of Industry: MDU/PCO, Telcos, MSOs, Municipalities Products/Services: Active Electronics – Wireline, Active Electronics – Wireless, Passives – Outside Plant, Passives – Inside Plant, Customer-Premises Equipment

Charter Communications Inc. is a Fortune 500 company and the fourth-largest cable operator in the United States. Charter provides advanced video, high-speed Internet and telephone services to approximately 5.2 million residential and business customers in 25 states. Charter is proud to offer advanced entertainment and communications services that “Bring Your Home to Life.” We offer today’s most advanced video services, including increasingly popular high-definition programming and digital video recorder service. Customers can choose from more than 6,000 video-on-demand movies and shows – 24/7. We offer Internet connection speeds up to 20 Mbps nationwide and have launched Charter Internet Ultra100 service, with speeds up to 100 Mbps downstream and 5 Mbps upstream, in most markets. For customers on Charter Internet Express, Plus, and Ultra100 we include Charter Security Suite to protect against online threats and intrusions. Charter Telephone offers exceptional sound quality and reliability as well as popular calling features. For additional savings and convenience, we offer bundles of two or three Charter services for one value-based price. Customers who combine their cable television, high-speed Internet and telephone services into a triple-play bundle receive the greatest value for their communications dollars.

Clearfield In FTT-MDU applications, where space is typically at a premium, Charles Fiber Building Terminals (CFBT) provide compact fiber interconnect capabilities in organized, technician-friendly enclosures. CFBT offer industry-leading flexibility in placement and fiber splicing methods. They can be placed in an MDU basement for centralized or distributed fiber runs or in telecom closets on each floor level of larger buildings for single-unit runs. They support fusion, preconnectorized or field connector feed and drop splicing for up to 96 connections. CFBT are manufactured in the U.S. from high-quality powder-coated aluminum. Features include low-profile, quarter-turn latches (216 tool lock), padlockable hasps and internal and external ground locations. A CFBT-Hub option is available with up to three 1x32 splitters.

Charter Communications

4670 E. Fulton Street #102 Ada, MI 49301 P: 616-607-2373 F: 616-975-1107 Contact: Joe Geroux, Director of MDU Sales E: [email protected] URL: www.charter.com Segments of Industry: MDU/PCO Products/Services: Internet and Video Services/ Programming

5480 Nathan Lane Plymouth, MN 55442 P: 763-476-6866 F: 763-475-8457 Contact: Johnny Hill E: [email protected] URL: www.clearfieldconnection.com Segments of Industry: MDU/PCO, Telcos, MSOs, Municipalities Products/Services: Passives – Outside Plant, Passives – Inside Plant Clearfield’s FieldSmart Small Count Delivery (SCD) Case is the industry’s only universal drop cable enclosure for use with any drop cable media in all application environments. The Clearfield solution provides configuration flexibility for the last-mile access point with an innovative, intuitive and modular approach while utilizing proven, traditional sealed-closure techniques. While the FieldSmart SCD Case supports all industry standard drop cable media, it has been optimized for use with a pushable fiber solution that is installed through ruggedized microduct directly into the SCD Case for ease of access and rapid user turn-up and restoration when needed. In addition, when deployed with the CraftSmart Fiber Protection line of pedestals

March/April 2012 | www.broadbandcommunities.com | BROADBAND COMMUNITIES |

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hot products and vaults, the SCD Case sets the standard for integrated fiber protection and management. Get smart, be smart at www.clearfieldconnection.com or www.FiberPuzzle.com/ClearfieldCollege, our online fiber management curriculum designed to get you on your way to intelligent deployment practices throughout your fiber network.

COS Systems

Comcast

Segments of Industry: MDU/PCO, Telcos, MSOs, Hospitality, Municipalities Products/Services: Back-Office Software, Customer-Facing Software

1701 JFK Blvd. Philadelphia, PA 19103 P: 1-800-XFINITY Contact: Daniel O’Connell E: [email protected] URL: www.comcast.com/multifamily

16 Coddington Wharf #2 Newport, RI 02840 P: 617-274-8171 Contact: Ron Corriveau, VP of Business Development Email: [email protected] URL: www.cossystems.com

Segments of Industry: MDU/PCO Products/Services: Internet and Video Services/ Programming Comcast Corporation is one of the nation’s leading providers of entertainment, information and communications products and services. We value our partnerships with multifamily communities as we help them deliver the best in entertainment to their residents. All Comcast services bring valuable benefits to each customer’s home, including Xfinity TV, Xfinity Internet and Xfinity Voice. We hold our products, service and people to the highest standards because our goal is to provide a superior customer experience. Serving residents in 36 states and the District of Columbia, Comcast will partner with you to meet all your residents’ communications needs.

Corning Cable Systems

800 17th St. NW Hickory, NC 28601 P: 828-901-5000 URL: www.corning.com/cablesystems Segments of Industry: MDU/PCO, Telcos, MSOs, Municipalities Products/Services: Video Headends and Related Equipment; Passives – Outside Plant; Passives – Inside Plant; Customer-Premises Equipment; Test Equipment; Planning, Design or Construction; Training OptiSheath MF12 MultiPort Terminal Corning Cable Systems OptiSheath MF12 MultiPort Terminal combines the OptiTip adapter with a sealed closure for quick and easy deployment. The factory-terminated enclosure eliminates time required for field termination methods while providing industry-leading quality and reliability. The OptiSheath MF12 MultiPort Terminal is easily mounted in pedestals, on poles or below ground for increased deployment versatility.

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COS FTTx Network Management Suite COS is a business operations support suite of products that offers self-service management and secure automated provisioning for FTTx networks. It provides a comprehensive solution to automate operational and business processes critical to selling, provisioning and managing broadband networks. The COS Marketplace offers a secure self-service portal that lets customers and service providers conduct business without calling a sales or support center. COS automatically provisions services selected from the Marketplace, sends customer and billing information to the relevant service provider and enables the services, all in a matter of minutes. By enabling self-service for customers and service providers, COS improves customer satisfaction, lowers service deployment costs and accelerates revenues. For more information, please call us at 617-274-8171 or visit us at www.cossystems.com

Cox

1400 Lake Hearn Dr. Atlanta, GA 30319 P: 404-269-7776 Contact: Shannon Boyle E: [email protected] URL: www.cox.com Segments of Industry: MDU/PCO, Single Family and Commercial Products/Services: Internet and Video Services/Programming Cox Communications is a multiservice broadband communications and entertainment company with approximately 6 mil-

| BROADBAND COMMUNITIES | www.broadbandcommunities.com | March/April 2012

Customers are accessing the network from a broad array of devices and new media, causing service providers to reexamine how they define access. ADTRAN® is working with customers to deliver innovative solutions for every ingress point in the network. This innovation helps ADTRAN service provider customers accelerate change and quickly launch new revenue generating services.

For more information, visit www.adtran.com/access and discover how ADTRAN is Reinventing Access.

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hot products lion residential and commercial customers. The third-largest cable television company in the United States, Cox offers an array of advanced digital video, high-speed Internet and telephony services over its own nationwide IP network. Since 1996, Cox has invested more than $16 billion in infrastructure upgrades to increase capacity and remain at the forefront of innovation. Satisfying Cox customers is top priority, so the network was designed with future growth in mind. It’s all part of Cox’s ongoing focus to meet its customer’s expanding bandwidth demands by developing a resilient, faster and more robust network. Residents will thank you for choosing Cox Communications, and properties will benefit by leveraging the Cox reputation for service, reliability and technology leadership. Find out how to become a Cox Digital Community powered by Cox. More information about the services of Cox Communications, a wholly owned subsidiary of Cox Enterprises, is available at www.cox.com.

allows you to print beautiful, high-resolution maps at any size up to D and E size drawings and to generate PDF files with a couple of mouse clicks.

Display Systems International 2214 Hanselman Ave. Saskatoon, SK S7L 6A4 P: 877-934-6884 F: 306-934-6447 Contact: Whitney Lemke, Executive Assistant E: [email protected] URL: www.displaysystemsintl.com

Segments of Industry: MDU/PCO, Telcos, MSOs, Hospitality, Municipalities Products/Services: Video Headends and Related Equipment

Design Nine

2000 Kraft Drive, Ste. 2180 Blacksburg, VA 24060 P: 540-951-4400 Contact: Andrew Cohill E: [email protected] URL: www.designnine.com/ fiber-and-network-manager.html Segments of Industry: Municipalities Products/Services: Planning, Design or Construction; Back-Office Software

Design Nine Network Management Tools Our Web-based Network Management tool allows you to create beautiful visual maps of your network. Build your own service area maps from scratch, import data from other GIS sources or have our staff create base maps for you. Access the system from any Web browser. Fully integrated network equipment inventory management lets you track where splice cans, handholes, switches, routers and radios are located. Track equipment by put-in-service dates, serial numbers, vendor or model number. Easy-to-use drawing tools let you create and maintain duct and fiber cable routes and splices. Map start and end points of fiber cables, manage used and unused buffer tubes and fibers, and enter splice data quickly. Unlike other GIS systems, this tool

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DSI now offers TV listings data services for interactive programming guides. We provide accurate, up-to-the-minute listings in a variety of standardized XML and text-based formats and in MicroSoft MediaRoom GLF format, as well as custombuilt data solutions. Specify the number of days in advance you would like your data to be delivered, and we will post it to your server or host it for you. As part of our commitment to offering our customers excellent value and service, we accommodate your needs in regards to custom or local origination channels at no additional charge. DSI offers all of this and more at 25 percent to 60 percent less than your current provider’s cost.

G4S Technology LLC

1200 Landmark Center, Ste. #1300 Omaha, NE 68102 P: 402-233-7700 F: 402-233-7650 Contact: Laura Kocher E: [email protected] URL: www.g4stechnology.com

| BROADBAND COMMUNITIES | www.broadbandcommunities.com | March/April 2012

hot products Segments of Industry: MDU/PCO, Telcos, Municipalities Products/Services: Planning, Design or Construction G4S Technology (formerly Adesta) specializes in the design and implementation of modern communications networks and infrastructure for public and private customers, including ILECs, CLECs, utilities, municipalities, economic development projects and rural broadband cooperatives. A trusted provider of facilities, equipment and personnel for a wide variety of communications infrastructure, we offer custom-tailored, results-oriented services in SONET, IP/Ethernet, DWDM/ CWDM, wireless, last-mile and broadband networks. Since 1988, G4S Technology has deployed more than 2 million fiber miles. We can help develop a greenfield network or integrate into an existing infrastructure. We work with inside- and outside-plant facilities and provide all types of networks for voice, data and video applications. Our wide service range includes design, engineering, cable and equipment procurement, aerial and underground installation, construction, system testing and turn-up, fusion splicing and documentation. G4S Technology is a founding member of the Fiber-to-theHome Council.

GLDS

Cable billing system. GLDS also offers telephone and Web-enabled customer self-care plus workforce management solutions from any Web-enabled device. • Designed for the requirements of private, franchised and municipal broadband • Exclusive address-based features • Full support for Interdiction, FTTH, digital, IPTV, VoIP and more • Landlord/tenant billing options • Low-cost online solutions for small systems Serving small and mid-sized operators, GLDS has implemented its solutions for more than 300 cable systems in 49 U.S. states and 44 countries worldwide. For more information, contact GLDS Sales at 800-882-7950. www.glds.com

Matrix Design Group – Subsidiary of Millennium Communications Group

11 Melanie Lane, Unit 13 East Hanover, NJ 07936 P: 800-677-1919 F: 973-503-0111 Contact: Rachael Licata MILLENNIUM E: [email protected] COMMUNICATIONS GROUP INC. URL: w  ww.matrixdg.com/experience and www.millenniuminc.com A Subsidiary of

5954 Priestly Dr. Carlsbad, CA 92008 P: 760-602-1900 F: 760-602-1928 Contact: Sandi Kruger E: [email protected] URL: www.glds.com

Segments of Industry: MDU/PCO, Municipalities, Other: State and Local Governments, Utilities Products/Services: Structured Wiring; Other Managed Services; Planning, Design or Construction

Segments of Industry: MDU/PCO, Telcos, MSOs, Municipalities Products/Services: Back-Office Software, Customer-Facing Software

A Broadband Communities Top 100 Company, GLDS sets the standard for cable billing and subscriber management software. WinCable’s client/server architecture, attractive Windows design and robust SQL database provide optimal features, benefits and value for smaller operators. Digital, IPTV and analog set-top boxes, FTTH ONUs, conditional access, satellite receivers, cable modems, VoD, OTT and VoIP can all be managed directly from the Win-

Matrix Design Group, a subsidiary of Millennium Communications Group, stands out in network engineering and design for fiber optic–based technology solutions. Our highly skilled design and engineering team will lead your project from conception, budgeting, engineering and design to construction and final acceptance. We bring your project both unsurpassed excellence and continuity of service. Our fiber optic network services staff offer unmatched professionalism under a stringent quality control program. No matter the size of the project, our staff will deliver superior craftsmanship and attention to detail. Likewise, we are remarkably capable of managing and navigating your project with the ease that only a company with Matrix’s experience can provide. The combination of the best equipment, education, experience and dedicated personnel, provides you, the client, with the utmost level of service and reliability.

March/April 2012 | www.broadbandcommunities.com | BROADBAND COMMUNITIES |

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hot products Mesh Networks, The

11757 Katy Freeway, Ste. 1300 Houston, TX 77079 P: 855-855-MESH Contact: Brian Foley E: [email protected] URL: www.themeshnetworks.com Segments of Industry: MDU/PCO, MSOs, Hospitality, Other – WISP Products/Services: Back-Office Software, Customer-Facing Software

NetProfit Managed Bandwidth Solutions Reduces required bandwidth by up to 45 percent • LOWERS COST/INCREASES REVENUE Controls bandwidth hogs through quota management • REDUCES ABUSE/INCREASES REVENUE Increases quality of service for all network users • INCREASES CUSTOMER SATISFACTION AND REDUCES CHURN

– Remote Sparing: Immediate replacement of bad modulators and/or bad receivers with no truckroll. Back in service immediately! – iPhone/Smartphone/PC Web portal: System status available remotely 24/7 anytime, anywhere – in the palm of your hand! – Remote monitoring, detection and alerting of environmental issues such as temperature and humidity – Remote power control of headend components and receivers – Compatibility with most DISH Receivers (211, 311, 222, 222K, and many others), ensuring that all receivers stay on the program channel lineup – Remotely changing program channel lineup. • The advanced services models also provide – Automated video and audio signal monitoring and alerting – Automated issue resolution.

Provides a user-initiated bandwidth management system • PROMOTES INCREASED SALES Eliminates the need for IT interaction with the end user • REDUCES OVERHEAD Identifies and quantifies bandwidth, creating documentation for billing in the enterprise environment • CREATES ADDITIONAL REVENUE STREAM

Multicom Inc.

1076 Florida Central Parkway Longwood, FL 32750 P: 407-331-7779 Contact: Dominic Ruggiero, Sales; Matt Conrad, Marketing E: [email protected] URL: www.multicominc.com R

Segments of Industry: MDU/PCO, Telcos, MSOs, Hospitality, Municipalities Products/Services: Active Electronics – Wireline; Active Electronics – Wireless; Video Headends and Related Equipment; Passives – Outside Plant; Passives – Inside Plant; Structured Wiring; Test Equipment; Other Managed Services; Planning, Design or Construction; Training; Customer-Facing Software (VoIP)

For more information, call Multicom at 800-423-2594 or email [email protected].

Multilink

580 Ternes Ave. Elyria, OH 44035 P: 440-366-6966 F: 440-366-6802 Contact: Matt Ternes E: [email protected] URL: www.GoMultilink.com Segments of Industry: MDU/PCO, Telcos, MSOs, Municipalities Products/Services: Passives – Outside Plant, Passives – Inside Plant, Customer-Premises Equipment, Structured Wiring

Multicom is introducing the innovative, new PCO/MDU product line called the Guardian. This unique remote headend server was developed by the Multicom Development Labs for cable operators’ use in MDUs, hospitals, nursing homes, etc. • The standard model provides options for – Easy remote monitoring and control of most analog/ digital/QAM headends

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| BROADBAND COMMUNITIES | www.broadbandcommunities.com | March/April 2012

Multilink is a manufacturer and supplier of environmentally controlled cabinets for inside-plant and outside-plant applications. The 12RU backhaul cabinet is a perfect solution for any small wireless application. The enclosure provides a full 12RU of mounting space in a compact, weatherproof enclosure. The unit is wall- or strut channel­­-

hot products mountable and features a padlockable three-point locking system. Dual 100 CFM fans are thermostatically controlled and flush hot air out through a 100-percent differentiated chamber above the cabinet. 120V service entrance and duplex provide power to rack needs and fans. This is just one example of how Multilink develops cabinets to fill specific needs in the industry. Contact us today to see what we can do for your application.

OFS

2000 N.E. Expressway, Ste. B030 Norcross, GA 30071 P: 770-798-2729 F: 770-798-3872 Contact: Alexis A. McIntosh E: [email protected] URL: www.ofsoptics.com

$)XUXNDZD&RPSDQ\

Segments of Industry: MDU/PCO, Telcos, MSOs, Municipalities Products/Services: Active Electronics – Wireless, Passives – Outside Plant, Passives – Inside Plant, Customer-Premises Equipment, Training EZ-Bend InvisiLight Optical Solution The OFS EZBend InvisiLight Optical Solution is a revolutionary new system that enables fast, easy, virtually invisible in-residence fiber drop connections. The installer uses an innovative, simple process to adhere a tiny microdrop, less than 1 mm in diameter, into the grooves between molding and walls or ceilings, resulting in a protected fiber link that blends seamlessly into the residence.

TE Connectivity’s Innovative Rapid Fiber Panel Add capacity quickly and economically across the network. TE’s new Rapid fiber panel combines IFC cables with fiber panels using TE’s patented RapidReel fiber spooling system. With applications ranging from central offices and data centers to cell sites and customer premises, Rapid fiber panels offer extensive features and benefits. TE’s Rapid fiber panels provide a more cost-effective and efficient way to add fiber capacity by reducing engineering, ordering and installation time. By allowing new fiber to be installed faster than before and by providing flexibility and scalability to deliver more bandwidth as needed, TE’s Rapid fiber panels lower the total cost of expanding fiber capacity, helping service providers attract and retain customers and ensure long-term profitability. For more information, contact Power & Tel at 800-2387514 or [email protected]

Spot On Networks

55 Church St., Ste. 200 New Haven, CT 06510 P: 877-768-6687 F: 203-773-1947 Contact: Craig Edgar E: [email protected] URL: www.spotonnetworks.com

Power and Tel

Segments of Industry: MDU/PCO, Hospitality Products/Services: Internet and Video Services/ Programming

Segments of Industry: MDU/PCO, Telcos, MSOs, Hospitality, Municipalities Products/Services: Active Electronics – Wireline, Video Headends and Related Equipment, Passives – Outside Plant, Passives – Inside Plant, Customer-Premises Equipment, Structured Wiring, Test Equipment

Spot On Networks (SON) is the largest provider of high-speed Wi-Fi internet services to the multifamily industry. SON deploys fully managed Wi-Fi Networks to multifamily properties, hotels and commercial spaces. Spot On is the only Wi-Fi provider with UserSafe technology. Users can surf, email, shop, bank and more with 100-percent security protection over our wireless networks. Utilizing various technologies, SON provides high-speed Wi-Fi capabilities throughout a residential complex that replace the need for DSL or cable modem services while providing complete mobility and faster service within that complex. SON Wi-Fi networks can also provide residential buildings with enhanced cellular and smartphone coverage over Wi-Fi.

2673 Yale Ave. Memphis, TN 38112 P: 701-866-3300 F: 901-320-3082 Contact: Keith Cress E: [email protected] URL: www.ptsupply.com

March/April 2012 | www.broadbandcommunities.com | BROADBAND COMMUNITIES |

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hot products SON deploys only secure, carrier-grade and CALEAcompliant networks and offers both properties and residents 24/7 service, support and maintenance. SON has deployed networks in more than 400 properties that include more than 75,000 residential units and 7,000 hotel rooms.

Sumitomo Electric Lightwave 78 T.W. Alexander Drive Research Triangle Park, NC 27709 P: 800-358-7378 Contact: Customer Service E: [email protected] URL: www.sumitomoelectric.com

Televes USA LLC

9800 Mount Pyramid Ct. #400 Englewood, CO 80112 P: 303-256-6767 F: 303-256-6769 Contact: Javier Ruano E: [email protected] URL: www.televes-usa.com Segments of Industry: MDU/PCO, Telcos, MSOs, Hospitality Products/Services: Active Electronics – Wireline, Video Headends and Related Equipment, Passives – Outside Plant, Passives – Inside Plant, Customer-Premises Equipment, Test Equipment

Segments of Industry: MDU/PCO, Telcos, MSOs, Hospitality, Municipalities Products/Services: Passives – Outside Plant; Passives – Inside Plant; Structured Wiring; Test Equipment; Planning, Design or Construction; Training

H45 Advance Series – Advanced HDTV System Analyzers The H45 Advance series are next-generation real-time digital processing test solutions designed for digital and analog cable, satellite and off-air HDTV signal analysis. Visit us at Booth #515 at the Broadband Communities Summit for the latest in advanced technologies from Sumitomo Electric Lightwave, a major industry leader in optical fiber, cable, Air-Blown Fiber and connectivity solutions. Featured are the revolutionary Lynx2 CustomFit Connectors (MPO, SC, LC, FC and ST) for customized on-site EXACT cable builds and terminations for MDU, data center, inside plant, outside plant, FTTx and virtually any network connectivity application. Lynx2 connectivity eliminates the shorts, excess slack and logistic delays of preterminated cables for better performance and faster installations, changes, repairs, and restorations for the most minimal downtime of your network. Showcased also is the new Quantum Core Alignment Fusion Splicer, the industry’s first and only splicer with fully navigational touch-screen interface for faster and easier splicing functionality; SD port for virtually unlimited data storage plus work-related video, audio and software uploads/downloads; the longest electrode life; remote Internet maintenance capabilities and much more.

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KEY FEATURES: • Real-time digital processing • MPEG-4 full-HDTV signal display and measurements • Optical interface (with built-in optical receiver) • Professional-grade spectrum analyzer (2MHz to 3.3GHz) • Workflow automation • Portability and ease of use HDTV TESTING MADE SIMPLE – One single tool covers every testing need: • CATV - QAM Annex A/B/C · NTSC • Satellite - DVB-S · 8PSK · DSS · DVB-S2 • Off-Air - ATSC/8VSB · NTSC DIGITAL PROCESSING: Traditional sweep architecture meters spend more time missing signal information than measuring it! The H45 has been designed from the ground up to instantaneously obtain all the information in the signal in real time. With 20MHz digitally captured every 10 milliseconds, no detail escapes H45’s eye. The H45 with real-time digital processing is a total revolution.

| BROADBAND COMMUNITIES | www.broadbandcommunities.com | March/April 2012

When you have XFINITY, you’re not just building a project. You’re building the future. Want to build the hottest place in town? XFINITY can help with TV, Internet and Voice that work seamlessly together—so your residents can access and enjoy everything they love anytime, anywhere. With XFINITY, your residents have access to over 75,000 On Demand TV shows and movies on TV and streaming online. XFINITY is the fastest Internet provider in the nation according to PC Mag, which provides your residents with all the speed they need to do more of what they want online. Plus, with the best in call clarity, your residents get unlimited nationwide calling to the US, including Canada and Puerto Rico. With XFINITY, your location is built to last.

Learn more at xfinity.com/multifamily Restrictions apply. Not available in all areas. Residential customers only. Availability of programming and features varies depending on level of service. 2011 rating by PC Mag based on review of customer data from www.speedtest.net. A trademark of Ziff Davis, Inc. Used under license. © 2012 Ziff Davis, Inc. Call clarity claim based on August 2010 analysis of traditional phone service by Tektronix. © 2012 Comcast. All rights reserved.

hot products Tellabs Inc.

1415 West Diehl Rd. Naperville, IL 60563 P: 707-206-1751 Contact: John Hoover E: [email protected] URL: www.tellabs.com/solutions/opticallan Segments of Industry: MDU/PCO, Telcos, Hospitality, Municipalities Products/Services: Active Electronics – Wireline, CustomerPremises Equipment Tellabs 1150 Multiservice Access Platform (MSAP) and Optical LAN Solutions Enterprise, MDU, education, hospitality and health care internal networks require huge amounts of bandwidth to meet their broadband needs. However, as their network requirements increase, so do costs. An all-fiber Optical LAN (local area network) helps you meet all your network requirements – and it is far more reliable, secure and cost-effective than a traditional copper-based active Ethernet LAN. Tellabs Optical LAN, using gigabit passive optical networking (GPON) technology, saves up to 70 percent of capital expenditures, 80 percent of power consumption and 90 percent of space requirements. In addition, it is a green alternative to the power-hungry and space-consuming traditional copperbased LAN. Optical LAN benefits • Significantly reduce capital and operating expenses • Meet green environmental goals and increase LEED accreditation levels • Experience long-term savings by future-proofing your network infrastructure • Converge data, voice, and video services into a single solution

Time Warner Cable

2551 Dulles View Dr. Herndon, VA 20171 P: 703-345-2749 Contact: Joanne Luger E: [email protected] URL: www.timewarnercable.com Segments of Industry: MDU/PCO Products/Services: Internet and Video Services/ Programming

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TWC Community Solutions is Time Warner Cable’s business unit dedicated to the multifamily and student housing business segments. We partner with multifamily and student housing professionals to assist them in exceeding their goals and enhancing their businesses. Providing our customers with advanced digital TV, broadband Internet and digital phone is our core business, not just an ancillary product, as is the case for some of our competitors. We have all the bandwidth needed to support your residents’ high-tech lifestyles. That’s why we have exciting new products and services being released all the time! Time Warner Cable SignatureHome – Start with our digital products, then add premium services like advanced TV, next-generation Internet and smarter home phone. Then, top it off with exceptional service. Residents will enjoy the latest innovations, from high-definition television to enhanced TV features for the iPad and much more! Our products and services allow residents to enjoy technology better. We create partnerships that use our core business to enhance your core business – resident satisfaction and ancillary income. To learn about ALL our Hot Products, contact us or visit us online at www.timewarnercable.com

Verizon Enhanced Communities One Verizon Way, Mailcode VC21E217 Basking Ridge, NJ 07920 P: 866-638-6066 Contact: Tom Nugent Email: [email protected] URL: www.verizon.com/communities

Segments of Industry: MDU/PCO Products/Services: Internet and Video Services/ Programming, Other Managed Services Verizon Enhanced Communities is Verizon’s business unit dedicated to serving single- and multifamily residential communities with Verizon FiOS TV, Internet, and phone services as well as cutting-edge applications that add value to your community, including Verizon Concierge and Verizon Home Monitoring & Control, all delivered over the award-winning Verizon FiOS all-fiber-optic network.

| BROADBAND COMMUNITIES | www.broadbandcommunities.com | March/April 2012

hot products Verizon offers a wide variety of programs benefiting property owners and unique services to enhance any community, differentiating it from a property without FiOS services. Verizon makes it easy, providing custom installation with dedicated management and engineering teams, as well as ongoing customer service. Contact us to learn how your property can get an upgrade and benefit from the value of having an all-fiber-optic network.

Walker & Associates

7129 Old Hwy 52 N. Welcome, NC 27374 P: 800-WALKER1 F: 336-731-3089 Contact: Randy Turner E: [email protected] URL: www.walkerfirst.com Segments of Industry: Telcos, MSOs, Municipalities Products/Services: Active Electronics – Wireline; Active Electronics – Wireless; Passives – Outside Plant; Passives – Inside Plant; Customer-Premises Equipment; Structured Wiring; Test Equipment; Planning, Design or Construction TE Connectivity’s Flexible Fiber Box Indoor / Outdoor Rapid and Fixed Demarc and Aggregate Boxes

TE Connectivity’s (TE) Flexible Fiber Box (FFB) is designed to address the unique challenges of indoor, outside plant and fiber installations. Available in two base configurations, Fixed and Rapid, the FFB promotes true flexibility with easily interchangeable components for term, sliding adapter pack, fixed bulkhead, splice, MPO and hardened multifiber optical connector (HMFOC) configurations. The Rapid FFB system enables faster cable routing and installation, and the fiber cable spool helps to minimize overall labor costs. In addition, the spooling system reduces the need for site survey inspections and simplifies cable ordering and inventory requirements. TE’s Flexible Fiber Box Series incorporates the latest in cutting-edge technology, helps to deliver unmatched savings in installation time and labor costs and offers unrivaled performance for next-generation networks. For more information, contact Walker and Associates at 1-800-WALKER1 or visit www.walkerfirst.com

Broadband network design and development Design Nine provides communities and developers with expert advice, planning, and project management for your wireless and fiber projects.  Open access network planning and design  Open access business and financial pro formas  Fiber and wireless designs and implementation  Public/private partnership development  Asset mapping and needs assessment  Broadband project management  Vendor and systems identification  RFP design and management  Fiber splicing and network management software

We design and build fiber and wireless networks, and specialize in open systems. We will identify the right business and financial models, select the best vendors and systems to meet your needs, identify funding options, manage the procurement process, and select qualified firms to build and manage your network.

www.designnine.com Call us at 540.951.4400

DESIGN NINE we build networks that perform

March/April 2012 | www.broadbandcommunities.com | BROADBAND COMMUNITIES |

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INDEPENDENT TELCOS

More Than 600 Independent Telcos Deploy FTTH Fiber to the home has become the technology of choice for independent telephone companies in the United States. How long will they be able to keep choosing it? By Masha Zager ■ Broadband Communities

Viewing the Independent Telco List Since 2005, Broadband Communities has gathered information about companies deploying fiber to the premises. Visit www.Fiberville.com to browse the database of 800-plus companies and search, sort and download the data. If you are reading the digital edition of Broadband Communities, a formatted list of 622 independent telcos deploying FTTP follows this article. If you are reading the print edition, you can view the formatted list online in one of three ways: The table of contents on the magazine home page, www.bbcmag.com, has links to both the digital edition version and the PDF version, and the Featured Articles tab links to an HTML version. This information comes from a variety of sources, including vendors, press reports, RUS announcements and deployers. To improve data quality, we would prefer to gather more information directly from deployers themselves. To add or update information about your company, please write to [email protected].

I

ndependent telcos were among the first companies to deploy fiber broadband in the United States; a few adventurous companies began their FTTH projects at about the turn of the century. By March 2012, Broadband Communities had identified 622 independent telcos that have deployed or are preparing to deploy fiber to the premises. In addition, as numerous surveys have documented, many independent telcos that do not yet have specific plans to deploy fiber hope to do so in the future. A technology once at the “bleeding edge” has become mainstream very quickly. New Companies, New Activity Since Broadband Communities’ last independent telco census in October 2011, the number of telcos with fiber deployments grew by 37. (The actual number of additions was slightly higher because several companies were removed

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as a result of mergers and acquisitions.) Some of these additions were well-established deployments that did not come to our attention until recently, but most were new. Significantly, the new additions were not broadband stimulus grant recipients, though a few received subsidized loans from the Rural Utilities Service broadband loan program. The fact that new companies are moving forward with FTTH despite regulatory uncertainty and the lack of grant funding is encouraging. However, the addition of new telcos to the list no longer represents the bulk of this sector’s investment in FTTH. Rather, most telco activity comes from continuations of fiber rollouts begun in

earlier years. Though some companies appear to have stopped deploying fiber after their first pilot projects, many others continue to increase their FTTH footprints year after year as funding becomes available. Quite a few even seek new CLEC opportunities after they finish deploying fiber to their traditional service areas. The broadband stimulus program accounts for a significant amount of FTTH deployment. After frustrating delays in grant awards, releases of funds and fiber shipments (still an ongoing problem), most broadband stimulus projects are now under way. The bulk of the last-mile stimulus funds was awarded to independent telcos, and

About the Author Masha Zager is the editor of Broadband Communities. You can reach her at masha @bbcmag.com.

| BROADBAND COMMUNITIES | www.broadbandcommunities.com | March/April 2012

INDEPENDENT TELCOS this funding will generate a substantial amount of FTTH deployment through 2015. There is also still a considerable amount of deployment activity outside the stimulus program. The Future of FTTH for Telcos The longer-term future of FTTH deployment by this sector is in doubt. The FCC recently changed its approach to supporting rural telecommunications. The agency’s new rules (which, like its net neutrality rules, manage to make nearly everyone unhappy) aim to make broadband more widely available. If they succeed at that, they will certainly benefit rural residents who now struggle with dial-up or satellite service. However, the rules discourage investment in solutions such as fiber to the home. Rate-of-return regulation, the model used for rural telcos, is criticized by economists for encouraging “goldplating”; regulated companies have an incentive to spend more than they need to because their revenues are pegged to their expenditures. Rural telcos’ investments in fiber to the home have been cited as classic examples of gold-plating.

Broadband stimulus funding will keep independent telcos deploying fiber to the home for the next several years. The long-term future looks considerably less certain. However, although even the beneficiaries of rate-of-return regulation recognize that it rewards inefficient decisions, they disagree that investment in FTTH is inefficient. Proponents of rural FTTH argue, first, that fiber has a much longer economic life than copper or wireless technologies and costs less to operate and maintain and, second, that technologies with lower initial costs will not achieve the public goal of boosting rural economic opportunity and will, instead, simply maintain or widen the digital divide. Nevertheless, the current economic and political climate seems unlikely to permit the degree of support for rural FTTH that has existed for the last decade. To continue deploying fiber after

What Is an Independent Telco? The companies discussed in this article are licensed providers of wireline voice services other than Verizon, AT&T and CenturyLink. They are regulated in the United States as ILECs (incumbent providers), CLECs (competitive providers) or both. Most are rural providers, many of them cooperatives or small, family-owned businesses, set up 50 or more years ago to offer telephone service in regions not covered by the Bell system. A smaller number came into existence after the Telecommunications Act of 1996, some specifically to build fiber-to-the-home networks and others to serve businesses or to offer alternatives in underserved areas. Some CLECs began as resellers of incumbent services and evolved to become facilities-based providers. In addition, some cable operators that have CLEC certificates are included on the list. Today, many companies other than telephone companies deliver voice services and are functionally equivalent to CLECs. Although the telco category has become less meaningful, telcos still exist as a historical and legal category, and the definition used here is consistent with industry usage. Excluded, to the extent possible, are telcos whose only involvement with FTTH is to deliver services over fiber access networks that they do not own and were not involved in building – for example, service providers on networks owned by municipalities or by housing developers. Also excluded are non-telephone companies, such as electric utilities, wireless ISPs and search engine giants, that became CLECs only after building FTTH networks.

their currently funded projects are completed, independent telcos may have to develop new approaches to reducing deployment costs, reducing operating costs (especially backhaul) and increasing service revenues. What the Numbers Show 1. As noted in previous years, larger telcos are more likely to deploy FTTH only in new developments; smaller telcos are more likely to replace their aging copper plant with fiber or to overbuild nearby areas. Most of the largest telcos on our list – sometimes called Tier 2 telcos – including Fairpoint, Frontier, TDS Telecom and Windstream, have greenfield-only fiber deployment policies. (Frontier’s large FTTH network came with its purchase of Verizon assets; in addition, TDS Telecom has built FTTH in a few towns where it faces stiff competition.) Large telcos that are overbuilding their own or others’ territories with fiber, such as SureWest and Cincinnati Bell, tend to be metropolitan rather than rural. In other words, most of the fiber-tothe-home upgrades outside metropolitan areas are being done by smaller, or Tier 3, telcos, both ILECs and CLECs. 2. The great majority of independent telcos that build fiber networks are incumbent providers or subsidiaries of incumbents. Of the independent telcos deploying fiber, 86 percent are incumbent carriers that are either replacing old copper plant with fiber, building fiber to new developments in their service areas or overbuilding towns near their service areas where they have name recognition – or some combination of the three. In most

March/April 2012 | www.broadbandcommunities.com | BROADBAND COMMUNITIES |

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INDEPENDENT TELCOS states, they must form CLEC subsidiaries to move outside their traditional service areas, but they are classified here as ILECs even if their fiber-to-the-home networks are only in their CLEC areas. The remaining companies are pure CLECs (competitive carriers), many of which have no traditional geographic base. These companies seek promising territories to overbuild with fiber. A few of them build hybrid fiber-coax networks in some areas and FTTH networks in others. Many of the pure CLECs originally collaborated with housing developers to build networks in greenfield developments and master-planned communities, but after the housing market peaked, some turned to overbuilding. A few, such as ComSpan USA and Hiawatha Broadband, adopted an overbuilding model from the start. Others focus on serving small and midsized businesses.

FTTH Network Builders by Type ILECs and their CLEC subsidiaries 86%

Pure CLECs 14% Figure 1: Most independent telcos that deploy FTTH are incumbents, though many of the incumbents are overbuilding nearby areas with fiber.

revenues. Thus, about three-quarters of the independent telcos for which we have information sell video as well as voice and data services over fiber. (Many of those that do not offer video serve only business customers.)

Mobile backhaul over fiber has become an important service for independent telcos and may help improve the business case for FTTH. The proportion of ILECs to CLECs has varied only slightly over the years we have tracked telco fiber builds, even as the total number of companies increased by a factor of nearly 15. The typical independent telco serves a few thousand customers in one or two rural counties; however, such telcos range from corporate giants to tiny cooperatives that serve a few hundred customers. Likewise, their fiber deployments range from more than 150,000 homes passed to pilot projects with fewer than a hundred homes passed.

Beyond the triple play, the most common residential services are security monitoring, gaming and home automation; business services such as Ethernet LANs are also offered by telcos that have significant numbers of business customers. The home-automation market is expected to grow rapidly in the next

few years as vendors introduce low-cost product offerings. Two important new services for fiber networks are mobile backhaul and meter reading. In the last few years, as demand for mobile bandwidth has grown, so has the demand for mobile backhaul capacity. A market forecast report by Dell’Oro Group projects that mobile backhaul market revenues will grow to nearly $9 billion by 2015. To meet the data demand generated by iPhones, iPads and similar mobile devices, national and regional wireless companies are upgrading their wireless backhaul from T1 over copper to Ethernet over fiber. These upgrade projects, which started in metropolitan areas, have now reached rural areas. In the last year or so, most rural telcos have bid on contracts from wireless providers to run fiber to cell towers and backhaul data traffic to the Internet.

Services Delivered or Planned on FTTH Networks Triple Play 57%

Triple Play Plus Additional Services 4%

3. The triple play of voice, data and video services is still standard, but offering additional services is becoming more common. Even though video is a low-margin or even a zero-margin business for small telcos, it attracts customers and thus helps protect telephone and broadband

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Data, Voice 18% Other 2%

Unknown 19%

Data, Voice Plus Additional Services 0%

Figure 2: In residential areas, the “triple play” of voice, video and data continues to be the standard offering.

| BROADBAND COMMUNITIES | www.broadbandcommunities.com | March/April 2012

INDEPENDENT TELCOS FTTH Technology Used Note: Some telcos use multiple technologies.

443

GPON

193

Active Ethernet

66

Unknown/Undecided

36

EPON RFoG

8 Number of independent telcos

Figure 3: Passive optical networks are far more common than active networks, but active networks continue to gain in popularity. Some telcos deploy PON to residential customers and active Ethernet to business customers.

Fiber-based mobile backhaul has become so ubiquitous a service that it is no

longer considered noteworthy, and we do not try to track it. However, it has

an important relationship to FTTH. Because many cell sites are in residential areas, serving cell sites entails placing a great deal of fiber very close to residences, which helps offset the costs of deploying fiber to the home. Automated meter reading and other smart-grid applications are not yet widespread, but they, too, could prove important to the business case for fiber. Electric utilities are now planning for a variety of smart-grid applications, of which the most basic and straightforward is meter reading. Rather than build their own high-capacity networks for smart grids, some utilities are discussing collaboration with telcos that have suitable networks.

Telcos Building FTTH Networks, by State Iowa still takes the lead in the number of telcos deploying FTTH – not surprising, as Iowa has far more rural telcos than any other state. Minnesota and Texas are close behind, and there are current or pending builds by independent telcos in 47 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. Only Massachusetts, Delaware and Rhode Island are missing – and they are at the epicenter of Verizon’s FiOS build.

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22

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11 13

4

22 14

11

33 7

11

15

13

17

2

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1

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24 10

6 14

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24

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5 10

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14 21

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INDEPENDENT TELCOS About a quarter of telcos for which information is available use multiple FTTH technologies (most often GPON and active Ethernet). This option has become practical now that electronics vendors support multiple technologies, often from the same chassis.

FTTH Electronics Vendors Used Note: Some telcos purchase equipment from multiple vendors.

Calix

446

ADTRAN

113

Enablence (Aurora or FX Support)

47

Unknown/Undecided

5. Several FTTH electronics vendors compete in the independent telco market.

33

Zhone

18

Motorola

16

CTDI

15

Allied Telesis

15

Alcatel-Lucent

11

Tellabs

8 0

50

100

150

200

250

300

350

400

450

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Number of independent telco customers

Figure 4: Calix remains the leading electronics vendor in this market, with its market share increasing after the acquisition of Occam.

One independent telco, Hancock Telecom in Indiana, went so far as to merge with a local electric utility, Central Indiana Power, in large part to use its FTTH network as the smart-grid network. (The merged entity is now called NineStar Connect.) Other telcos transmit meter data to utilities under contract or simply make meter data available to customers to help them monitor their own energy use. 4. Most telcos use GPON technology, but active Ethernet is increasingly important. Passive optical networks deployed today are all at the gigabit standard (with GPON deployments outnumbering Gigabit EPON by about 12 to 1), and most of the older, pre-gigabit networks have been upgraded. Next-generation PON technologies, including 10G GPON, 10G EPON and WDMPON, are now available in the market, but these have made little or no headway among independent telcos for service to

residences and small businesses. At least eight companies have deployed RFoG, a cable-friendly fiber-tothe-home technology that was designed to operate within a DOCSIS network. Not surprisingly, the telcos that have adopted RFoG technology are those that already operate hybrid fiber-coaxial plant, and some are CLEC arms of cable companies. However, no new RFoG deployments by independent telcos have been announced recently. Although passive optical networks remain the most popular choice, nearly one-third of independent telcos now use active Ethernet. About half of those have made a strategic commitment to active Ethernet, either to support an open-access model or, more frequently, because they believe active Ethernet has more bandwidth headroom. The rest use active Ethernet only in special cases – in sparsely populated areas where active Ethernet’s longer reach is an advantage, for business services or for other niche applications.

The majority of independent telcos purchase their FTTH electronics, and often their fiber management equipment, from vendors that specialize in serving Tier 2 and Tier 3 telcos. These vendors are less likely to design equipment for particular customers; rather, they supply equipment for a variety of use cases and help customers configure it to meet specific needs. When independent telcos first began deploying fiber a decade ago, nearly all of them used FTTH electronics from Optical Solutions Inc. (OSI). After Calix acquired OSI in 2005, it continued to maintain OSI’s lead in this market. With Calix’s recent acquisition of Occam Networks, its strongest rival in the Tier 3 market, it can now count 72 percent of all independent telcos deploying FTTH as current or past customers. (Many of these customers have also purchased FTTH electronics from other vendors.) Most other electronics vendors have now withdrawn from this market. Some have gone out of business altogether, others have exited the FTTH access equipment business, and some no longer actively market their FTTH equipment to independent telcos. Besides Calix, the only FTTH electronics vendors that have recently announced customer wins in the U.S. independent telco market are ADTRAN, Zhone and Allied Telesis. Of those three, ADTRAN in particular has added a large number of Tier 3 telco customers in the last year. v

The list of 622 independent telcos deploying FTTH can be seen online at www.bbcmag.com. 52

| BROADBAND COMMUNITIES | www.broadbandcommunities.com | March/April 2012

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Analyze the Financial Viability of Any FTTH Project Fiber-to-the-Home system Analyzer Xyz Project: 20% equity/80% Debt Total homes and businesses passed Total subscribers at year end Average subscribers for year Total system construction cost Equity Debt, principal not including financing fees Cost to purchase and install customer premises equipment Cost to purchase and install central office equipment Direct costs per subscriber Analysis Construction Costs: Cost to pass one home or business Cost to connect one home or business systemwide Take rate, year end, at least one service taken systemwide Take rate, Midyear Average

year 1 year 2 year 3 10,000 16,000 18,250 2,500 6,000 7,300 1,250 4,250 6,650 16,829,954 22,093,748 24,396,793 5,000,000 5,000,000 5,000,000 20,000,000 20,000,000 20,000,000 2,057,500 4,794,500 5,760,400 14,772,454 17,299,248 18,636,393 823 782 743

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LESSONS FROM THE FIELD

Tales From the Fiber Frontier Hundreds of small telcos, cable companies and utilities are deploying fiber-to-the-home networks in the United States. Here are a few of the many lessons they’ve learned. Editor’s note: This article is the first in a series that celebrates the resourcefulness and ingenuity of the small companies building fiber networks. Even those in unique circumstances – such as on the peaks of the Sierra Nevadas – often discover solutions that other deployers can benefit from. Thanks to Neila Matheny of Calix for compiling these four stories. If your company (or one of your partners) would like to share a lesson from the field, please drop me a note at [email protected].

Powering a Mountain – John Lundgren, Director of Network Services, Volcano Communications Volcano Communications, a small, family-owned telco based in California’s Sierra Nevada, has found unique ways to maintain broadband service to customers located as high as 10,000 feet through severe weather conditions and lengthy power outages. In winter, Volcano’s territory is typically buried under many feet of snow, and it’s not uncommon for remote regions to go 30 days or more without power. To address these extreme weather conditions, Volcano rearchitected its network with alternative powering options to serve the network in times of outage. Volcano built small buildings to protect its new remote cabinets and to house backup batteries and generators. It also retrofitted existing cabinets in these remote locations so they could use one-rack-unit access equipment, thus making room for powering support. From these “mother ship” locations, Volcano line powers smaller, remote cabinets farther out in the network, which has allowed it to shorten VDSL2 loop lengths and deliver faster Internet speeds. In 2011, Volcano continued to push fiber up the mountain all the way to the Kirkwood Resort, where the elevation ranges from 7,800 to 9,800 feet and average annual snowfall exceeds 600 inches. Based on the lessons learned from its deployments at lower elevations, Volcano will use the same network architecture at Kirkwood and

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will also keep a microwave hop at the top of the mountain as another level of protection from the elements.

| BROADBAND COMMUNITIES | www.broadbandcommunities.com | March/April 2012

LESSONS FROM THE FIELD Using Different Flavors of Fiber – Jeff Symens, Outside Plant Manager, BEK Communications BEK Communications delivers phone, high-speed Internet and IPTV services over both copper and fiber technologies in rural south-central North Dakota. By the end of 2012, BEK will complete its fiber network build to reach 100 percent of subscribers. This fiber network will reach 1,987 customers with more than 1,700 miles of fiber. In deploying the network, BEK has faced the challenge of reaching some customers that were beyond the distance limitations of GPON (about 40 km with the extended-reach option). Using

the C- and E-series platforms from Calix enabled BEK to serve these customers with active Ethernet while still serving the majority of the customer base with GPON from the same platforms. This fiber network infrastructure was designed to enable BEK to migrate to new access platforms easily as customers demand new technologies and services. Deploying these platforms in the ODC 2000 and 3000 remote cabinets also allows the company to eliminate central offices and their accompanying expenses.

Walking the Leading Edge (Without Falling Off)

A family-owned telecommunications company based in Chillicothe, Ohio,

Horizon Telcom began as a traditional telephone company in 1895 and evolved with the times into a fiber optic broadband provider. Along the way, it increased its coverage area from its original 700-square-mile service territory to a total of 34 counties in southern and eastern Ohio. In addition, Horizon is leading the Connecting Appalachia middlemile network project, which is building nearly 2,000 miles of world-class, stateof-the-art fiber in 34 counties. Since 2005, Horizon has used various platforms in the Calix portfolio to enable its network and business evolution and has often been the first company to deploy new features and line cards. Horizon’s long-term relationship

with Calix has given the two companies the opportunity to field experiment together productively, with technicians from both companies working side by side through the process. Horizon has benefited by upgrading its services while using existing infrastructure. The most important lesson Horizon learned over the years is to hold small experiments in test-bed areas before deploying globally. This allows opportunities to find baseline settings for the network while working out patterned issues, or recurring problems, on a much smaller scale without negatively affecting a large portion of the customer base as adjustments are made.

Marketing Ahead of the Build Co-Mo Electric Cooperative, which has delivered electricity in rural central Missouri since 1939, has been dedicated to serving the needs of its membership throughout its history. More than 70 years after it was founded, Co-Mo made the decision to enter the broadband business. Its 25,000 members lacked adequate broadband, and the cooperative was twice turned down for broadband stimulus funding. However, before rolling out a self-funded FTTP network with a GPON architecture across its 2,300-square-mile service area, Co-Mo

built a detailed business case and determined exactly how many subscribers it would need to be successful. Carefully selecting two project areas to pilot the service, Co-Mo used a presale marketing effort with community meetings, door-to-door sales, yard signs and local business partnerships to drive early registrations. Within the first year of delivering service over its FTTP network, Co-Mo exceeded its initial target and achieved a 30 percent take rate in the project areas.

March/April 2012 | www.broadbandcommunities.com | BROADBAND COMMUNITIES |

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Middle-Mile Networks

Unique Partnership Key To Rural Nebraska Healthcare Network By partnering with Zayo Group, RNHN gained a dedicated health care network. Zayo and other operators will use the underlying infrastructure to support advanced broadband services for business and residential users. By Joan Engebretson

T

he Nebraska panhandle is one of the nation’s most rural areas, with population densities of less than one person per square mile in some places. About 75,000 to 80,000 people live in the 15,000 to 16,000-square mile area nearly twice the size of New Jersey. For years, hospitals and health care organizations that serve the area have relied on painfully slow T1 lines for connectivity to the outside world and to one another. All that will change when the Rural Nebraska Healthcare Network begins operation in mid-2012. “It will dramatically improve the performance of everything we are already doing,” comments Todd Sorenson, M.D., president of the RNHN – a group of nine hospitals and dozens of clinics in the Nebraska panhandle that will have a high-speed communications network dedicated solely to their needs. Construction of the RNHN was made possible in part through a grant from the Universal Service Rural Health Care Pilot Program. The other key compoenent was a unique partnership with Zayo Fiber Solutions, a unit of Zayo Group – a venture capital–funded company that has been acquiring fiber networks nationwide as well as building networks of its own.

Health Care Benefits The newly constructed, 750-mile highspeed Ethernet fiber network will sup-

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The network’s primary goal is to enhance patient care through speedier service, but some new applications may cut costs as well. port a wide range of telehealth applications. These include transmission of medical documents, telemedicine consultations between patients and doctors, telepharmacy, distance education, Internet connectivity and teleradiology. Health care providers will now be able to transmit public health data in a timely fashion to the state and the Centers for Disease Control and Protection, Dr. Sorenson says. Local emergency rooms also will be able to use the network to consult with physicians 24 hours a day. Although RNHN uses most of these applications already, they should work a lot better with higher-speed connectivity. “In the past, it could take one to two hours to transmit an image,” notes Sorenson. “Now it will take one minute or less.” Faster document transmission could certainly improve applications such as

teleradiology, which allows hospitals to have images read quickly without having to keep radiologists on premises 24/7. “We contract with a group in Denver that is made up of all board-certified and specially trained radiologists,” comments Sorenson. He notes that the primary emphasis is on enhancing patient care by providing speedier service rather than reducing medical costs. Nevertheless, at least one example he cites may have a positive impact on the bottom line as well: Speedier communications and diagnoses should help eliminate unnecessary patient transfers. In addition to providing higher bandwidth and faster communications, the new RNHN network should be more reliable than the organizations’ current T1 network. That network has just a single connection to the Internet,

About the Author Joan Engebretson is a Chicago-based freelancer who has been writing about the telecom industry since 1993. She can be reached at [email protected].

| BROADBAND COMMUNITIES | www.broadbandcommunities.com | March/April 2012

Middle-Mile Networks but the new network has a second, redundant connection. “We had a couple of incidents where a fiber was cut to the east of us and shut the whole panhandle down,” says Boni Carrell, executive director for the RNHN. The Zayo Partnership The RNHN project had its genesis in the Universal Service Rural Healthcare Pilot Program, launched in 2007 to enable the construction of dedicated health care networks in areas that lacked fiber resources from commercial network operators. Recipients were awarded 85 percent of network costs and were expected to raise the remaining 15 percent themselves. The cost of building the RNHN was about $18 million, and, according to Sorenson, raising 15 percent of that amount was no easy task. The solution was to install more than enough fiber for the RNHN – a total of 84 individual fibers – and then to lease 48 of those fibers on a long-term basis to Zayo. The money that the RNHN received from Zayo for those leases was sufficient to cover the RNHN’s portion of network construction costs. The remaining 36 fibers should provide the RNHN with ample capacity for years to come, even if new applications arise that require health care organizations to isolate certain types of traffic onto separate fibers for privacy reasons,

er G4S installs fib

duct along a ro

adway.

The Nebraska panhandle is one of the most sparsely populated areas of the United States.

says Duke Horan, regional manager for G4S Technology (formerly Adesta), the Nebraska-based construction company that built the RNHN. Community Benefits In the meantime, the unique partnership between the RNHN and Zayo is creating spillover benefits in the Nebraska panhandle. Zayo has lit some of its fibers and connected them to its pre-existing commercial network in the Denver area. In addition, several businesses with operations in the panhandle have purchased connectivity into Denver “either because they had another trading partner or their own business in Denver or because they wanted access to IP or voice networks through Denver,” notes Glenn

Russo, executive vice president of corporate strategy and development for Zayo Group. “It allows them to virtually be in a more competitive market and get access to services there.” Zayo also offers dark fiber leases on its portion of the panhandle network, and already at least one local service provider – Imperial, Neb.-based ALLO Communications, a competitive fiberto-the-home provider – has purchased a dark fiber lease from Zayo and installed its own transmission equipment. ALLO already had installed fiber networks in business districts of several panhandle communities to support broadband services to local businesses. However, if a business wanted to connect multiple locations in different communities, ALLO had to rely on circuits leased from other network operators. Now ALLO instead uses its own network, built on the Zayo dark fiber, to interconnect communities. This enables ALLO to offer local businesses 10 times the bandwidth without an increase in price, says ALLO President and CEO Brad Moline. ALLO’s new regional network is what some would call a middle-mile network, and ALLO’s experiences validate what many rural service providers have long asserted – that competitively priced middle-mile connectivity can help justify the cost of FTTH deployments in areas where such deployments previously would not have been economically feasible. When ALLO learned about plans for the RNHN several years ago, the

March/April 2012 | www.broadbandcommunities.com | BROADBAND COMMUNITIES |

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Middle-Mile Networks involved. He adds that Zayo’s involvement in the RNHN was attractive, in large part, because of the panhandle’s proximity to Zayo’s Denver network, hinting that such a partnership might not be attractive in some other markets. Horan was more optimistic, noting that G4S is already working on a project

Groundbreaking for the Rural Nebraska Healthcare Network took place in 2010.

company gambled that the network would indeed be constructed and began to deploy FTTH infrastructure in population centers within its service territory. The company has not been able to build a business case for deploying FTTH outside population centers, but Moline estimates that when ALLO’s FTTH deployments are completed, about 65,000 panhandle residents will have access to high-speed broadband as well as advanced video services based on Microsoft Mediaroom. ALLO’s regional fiber network will enable the company to use a single video headend for all the communities it serves. “We need to be able to push 2 Gbps between towns,” Moline explains. A Model to Replicate? The unique partnership underlying the RNHN is a “win-win for western Nebraska,” according to Kent Van Meter, vice president of Fiberutilities Group, the engineering company that designed the RNHN fiber network and conducted a

Bob Sommer fe

ld, president of

G4S,spoke at th e

network feasibility study as part of the process of helping the RNHN with its 100-page grant application. “They’re not only getting a robust medical network; they’re also getting new commercial telecom products.” Will other network operators and health care organizations undertake similar projects in other parts of the country? Russo says Zayo has bid on some other health care projects but sometimes loses out to network operators or grassroots organizations that already have some network facilities in the area

Competitively priced middle-mile connectivity can help justify the cost of FTTH deployments in areas where such deployments previously would not have been economically feasible. 58

groundbreaki

ng ceremony.

in another state involving a partnership between a health care organization and a network operator. The health care organization won a grant to cover part of the cost of building a network to support a health information exchange, and the network operator also will cover some of the construction costs. As with RNHN, the network operator will be able to use part of the network commercially – and that network also is expected to provide health care and economic benefits to the local community. Whether the sort of partnership that occurred between the RNHN and Zayo is the start of a trend or a onetime anomaly is still unclear. But if the new project in which G4S is involved is equally successful, perhaps the two deployments will serve as a model for how to make future health care networks more viable and to extend their benefits beyond the health care realm. v

| BROADBAND COMMUNITIES | www.broadbandcommunities.com | March/April 2012

Communications carriers have relied on Walker and Associates since 1970 to collaborate with them through industry changes, opportunities for growth, and technological advances. Today’s carrier knows that experience matters, that product alone is not the sole test of a partnership, and that being more than a distributor matters. You are looking for a business built on integrity, who understands your challenges, and your opportunities, and who focuses on you so you can focus on your customers. You deserve more, and with Walker you get more. Contact us today to learn how you can leverage MORE resources in a way that MATTERS to you.

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Technology

Passive Optical LAN For Smart Businesses GPON, the most widely used technology for fiber to the home in the United States, is now revolutionizing the design of building IT infrastructure. By Rob Narzisi ■ Advanced Media Technologies

T

oday’s building designers are looking for ways to decrease their buildings’ impact on the environment and on their clients’ bottom lines. A new approach to network design for commercial buildings, Passive Optical LAN (POL), can dramatically decrease the infrastructure cost, environmental impact, power consumption, space and HVAC requirements of a building’s IT infrastructure. POL uses GPON, a well-developed, proven technology, as the backbone of a building’s LAN to deliver Ethernet services as well as RF video to every location throughout the property where they are needed. GPON is an International Telecommunication Union standard that is the dominant standard for fiber to the home in the United States. Motorola’s xPON solution has been deployed over the last decade to serve millions of residential customers and has proven extremely reliable, well exceeding the carrier-grade standard of five-nines (99.999 percent) availability. Recently, Motorola added features that make GPON advantageous to deploy in enterprise applications that require 200 or more Ethernet ports. This fiber-to-the-desk solution eliminates most of the copper cabling and workgroup switches in a building’s infrastructure, replacing them with a passive fiber backbone. With Motorola’s POL solution – for which Advanced Media Technologies is the largest distributor – all a building’s data, IPTV, IP telephone and RF video services can be carried over a single fiber optic infrastructure instead of over multiple copper-based systems.

60

Figure 1: Building owners can save both capital and operating expenses with a POL.

Advantages for Building Owners The biggest win for building owners is that a POL solution does not require any active components between a LAN core and an end user. All the large data closets filled with switches, copper cabling, HVAC gear and fire mitigation equipment can be replaced by an optical splitter the size of a shoe box. This new development allows building owners to realize savings of between 40 and 60 percent on the up-front costs of IT powering equipment and a reduction in ongoing power usage of 10 to 33 percent compared with a traditional

copper network. Users of POL technology have also realized an increase in usable space by repurposing areas formerly allotted to data closets. One client, a university dorm facility, was able to house an additional eight students with the extra space, a direct impact on revenue and the bottom line. Adding to the list of benefits is that fiber optic networks are inherently more sustainable than copper networks. A copper network deployed today has an economic lifetime of only seven to 10 years, by which time technology will have exceeded copper’s transport capabilities. However, because optical cables

About the Author Rob Narzisi is sales manager at Advanced Media Technologies (AMT), the nation’s largest stocking distributor for Motorola equipment. You can reach him at rnarzisi@ AMT.com or visit www.amt.com.

| BROADBAND COMMUNITIES | www.broadbandcommunities.com | March/April 2012

Technology have been proven to carry bandwidths up to 100 terabits per second, fiber infrastructures have life expectancies of 25 years or more. Additionally, the use of AES 128-bit encryption makes a GPON network extremely secure and difficult to penetrate. This is a very attractive feature for the military and for financial institutions. Figure 1 shows typical savings for POL installations of various sizes. POL in Detail Figure 2 shows the differences in design between a traditional copper LAN and a POL. In a passive optical network, the bandwidth from each optical line terminal (OLT) is split among multiple optical network terminals (ONTs) at user locations. The ONTs convert optical signals from and to electrical signals that computers, telephones and televisions can receive. Usually, there are 32 or 64 ONTs per OLT. With GPON technology, each OLT has a total bandwidth capacity of 2.4 Gbps downstream and 1.2 Gbps up-

The workgroup terminal is in the corner, mounted securely by a mounting bracket. Ethernet cables are routed via the drop ceiling to a standard Ethernet wall outlet; fiber and power lines are also routed via the drop ceiling.

Here, the workgroup terminal is deployed beneath a desk, with Ethernet cables routed via the cubicle siding to other cubicles. The fiber connection is hidden on the other side of the workgroup terminal.

stream – not counting RF video, which can be sent over a separate wavelength. This capacity will increase over time; Motorola’s roadmap for its POL product line includes eventual migration to a 10 Gbps symmetrical PON platform.

If an OLT’s signal is split among 32 ONTs, the maximum distance to an ONT is 20 kilometers; a 64-way split reduces the maximum distance to 10 kilometers. These long distances make POLs suitable for campus environments

Figure 2: The architecture of a traditional LAN compared with a POL March/April 2012 | www.broadbandcommunities.com | BROADBAND COMMUNITIES |

61

Technology

In an optical LAN solution, 14 4 single-mod e fibers can carry data, voice an d video. Conventional wiring for data and voice requires 144 multimode cables and 144 copper cables.

as well as office buildings. The POL system uses a special kind of ONT called a workgroup terminal. Workgroup terminals are low-profile and can be mounted conveniently under desks, in wall cabinets or in ceiling enclosures. Each one is powered by a 12V wall transformer and has features tailored for enterprise applications, such as Power over Ethernet, coaxial output and high port counts.

62

Because each workgroup terminal is capable of providing four or more Ethernet ports, the number of home runs required is dramatically lower than for a conventional LAN. This, in turn, slashes both installation costs and the amount of nonrenewable materials that enters the environment. In a typical 2,000-port installation, more than 3,000 pounds of plastic and copper can be eliminated. Even though a POL system has only

a few basic building blocks, POL design is extremely flexible and, for best results, should be tailored to each individual building and to users’ current and future needs. Network designers who are experienced only with conventional Ethernet LANs will not necessarily have the expertise to design a POL. Fortunately, POLs have become so well established in a few short years that many network designers and installers have now been trained to use them. POL electronics providers such as Motorola offer courses in installing, operating and troubleshooting their systems. For the fiber infrastructure itself, training is available from fiber connectivity vendors and organizations such as BICSI. In summary, deployment of a POL is forward-thinking and future-proof. The opportunity to reduce capex and opex while simultaneously enjoying the green benefits is just too great to ignore. I believe the industry is the verge of a sea change in the way building designers specify network infrastructures. v

| BROADBAND COMMUNITIES | www.broadbandcommunities.com | March/April 2012

Technology

The Case for Vectoring A new technology that mitigates crosstalk on DSL networks now offers telcos a more graceful – and financially sustainable – transition to fiber. By Ariel Caner ■ ECI Telecom

N

ot so long ago, wireline operators were leading the market with voice and Internet services and enjoying low customer churn. A lot has changed over the last several years. Consumer demand for high-bandwidth services is on the rise, and video is now one of the killer apps. Internet-connected TVs, over-thetop video, HDTV and video on demand are all contributing to a data explosion. These bandwidth-hungry services are pushing residential data rate demands to over 35 Mbps, with no end in sight. New 3DTV and other rich media services are expected to bump this to more than 50 Mbps in the not-too-distant future. This puts telcos in a difficult spot. It’s no secret that their current copper infrastructure has technology limitations that restrict it both rate- and distancewise. It simply can’t support very-highbandwidth services. However, a new copper-enhancement technology called vectoring adds to their range of options. The Options Clearly, telcos must act and the sooner, the better. They have a couple of choices. Obviously, they can invest in new fiber plant. Fiber to the home is the ultimate solution for the long term because of its high capacity and low opex. However, although FTTH may be the best path forward for future-proof broadband access, many operators find themselves unable to execute a massive fiber deployment due to capex or resource constraints. FTTH can involve higher installation costs, end-user premises access issues (permits, digging) and multiyear deployment schedules, so for some telcos, building FTTH through-

64

By processing and limiting the interference between copper pairs, vectoring offers performance that approaches the theoretical noise-free limit of VDSL2. out their service areas isn’t an economically feasible or near-term solution, as the ROI is still not there. Another option is to deploy a hybrid network: fiber to the access portion, terminating at the street cabinets, and copper from the street cabinets to the end users. This is a very cost-effective way to provide superfast rates, and the deployment time is much faster than with other methods. However, this approach involves running VDSL2 (veryhigh-speed DSL2) over the final few hundred meters of copper, and there are limitations to this technology. Although speeds of up to 100 Mbps are theoretically possible using VDSL2, in reality, because most access networks use copper deployed decades ago, the practical rate and reach are limited by crosstalk. Crosstalk is the electromagnetic interference caused by the simultaneous transmission of signals in copper pairs that are bundled together in a feeder cable, which can typically contain 100 or more pairs. This noise can lead to in-

creased error rates and degradation in bandwidth, resulting in reduced rates over shorter distances from the customer premises. Given these alternatives, there’s a real need for innovative solutions. That’s where vectoring comes into play. Introducing Vectoring Developed by a group of top DSL researchers, vectoring – also known as dynamic spectrum management (DSM) Level 3 – is a technology that boosts the performance of copper to near fiber speeds, enabling higher-speed services to be provided over longer distances in existing copper access loops. Vectoring works by mitigating crosstalk. It processes and limits the interference that occurs between twisted copper pairs and, as a result, offers performance that approaches that of theoretical, noise-free VDSL2. The advancements brought about by the technology are impressive. For loop lengths shorter than 1,500 meters,

About the Author Ariel Caner is a product marketing manager in ECI Telecom’s Network Solutions Division with responsibility for product marketing activities related to ECI’s solutions. He can be reached at [email protected]. Learn more about ECI’s vectoring solutions at www.ecitele.com.

| BROADBAND COMMUNITIES | www.broadbandcommunities.com | March/April 2012

Technology estimates that in markets with multiple competitive service providers, a telco can reduce churn by up to 40 percent with an offering that meets the local cableco’s package on a price/performance basis.

Fig. 1: VDSL2 vectoring can improve data rates over copper wires by as much as 100 percent.

copper wire data rates can be improved by 100 percent, to 50 Mbps or more. (See Figure 1.) What’s more, the subscriber coverage area for premium services can be expanded by 300 percent. For these reasons, vectoring is quickly becoming the technology of choice for enhancing deployed copper to superfast speeds in the residential and business markets. In fact, market analysts are predicting that VDSL2-based networks will dominate the xDSL-based access network by 2014 and will be a major part of most next-gen access networks. Vectoring’s Business Case The economic justification for offering vectored VDSL2 services to subscribers can be established by examining the benefits to the operator, which are increased revenue per subscriber, reduced customer churn and postponed investment in new fiber access infrastructure. Increased revenue per subscriber With its typical 50 Mbps rate, vectored VDSL2 enables wireline carriers to offer very-high-bandwidth services and applications to subscribers. Although the take-up rate for premium services is largely dependent on pricing structure and subscribers’ sensitivity to price, case studies have shown that a price increase of between 20 and 35 percent is acceptable enough to encourage a take-up rate of 10 to 30 percent.

Reduced customer churn Carriers invest significant resources in analyzing and trying to prevent customer churn because they understand that the cost of supporting existing customers is significantly lower than the cost of acquiring new ones. For wireline

Postponed investment in new fiber access infrastructure For the long term, FTTH is an ideal choice, with its future-proof capacity and low operating overhead. Still, as mentioned earlier, the capex outlays required for fiber deployment can make such an investment prohibitive. Figure 2 shows the investment costs of VDSL and two FTTH technologies – PON and P2P – in six European countries. Using Germany as an example, a countrywide FTTH deployment would cost 120 billion euros while a FTTC+VDSL deployment would cost approximately 40 billion euros. The cost of FTTH is higher because installation costs are greater, fiber deployment schedules are longer and terrain issues, right-of-way limitations and

Vectored VDSL2 services can increase revenue per subscriber, reduce customer churn and help postpone investment in new fiber access infrastructure. operators especially, churn is a major concern, exceeding 5 percent per year in many markets. Although churn rates can vary according to geographic region, the reasons for churn remain similar and are tightly coupled with competing offerings. ECI Network Type

construction costs pose additional capex implications. As well, the payback period for an FTTH solution can be longer given these factors. When the business case for a full FTTH deployment is difficult to justify, vectoring is an attractive option because

Cost per Home Accessed (in Euros) Germany

France

Sweden

Portugal

Spain

Italy

VDSL

457

n.v.

352

218

254

433

PON

2,039

1,580

1,238

1,411

1,771

1,110

P2P

2,111

2,025

1,333

1,548

1,882

1,160

Source: Elixmann et al. (2008) Figure 2: VDSL can often be installed at a fraction of the cost of FTTH.

March/April 2012 | www.broadbandcommunities.com | BROADBAND COMMUNITIES |

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Technology it prolongs the useful life of installed copper infrastructure without the need for large capital outlays.

By extending the range and speed of VDSL2 networks, vectoring helps telcos keep costs down and market share up so they can transition to fiber at a pace that’s right for them.

An Example An operator plans to leverage vectoring on its VDSL2 interfaces to provide a 50 Mbps premium service offering 4.5x7.5churn bar_Layout 1 3/8/2012 9:38 AM Page 1 toGetSmartBeSmart its subscribers, BBC thus half reducing

and increasing average revenue per user (ARPU) by $58 over a two-year period. The revenue increase is based on the following assumptions: • $30 per month basic service rate • $8 per month up-charge for premium services • 15 percent premium service take-up rate • 4 percent reduction in customer churn (customers are retained who would have otherwise signed up for a competitor’s premium service). Taking into account these assumptions, ARPU is increased by $58 over a two-year period, as follows:

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1. Increased revenue due to premium service take-up:  $8 per month x 24 months x 15 percent take-up rate = $29 per user 2. Increased revenue due to a reduction in customer churn: $30 per month x 24 months x 4 percent customer base retained = $29 per user Fiber When the Time Is Right Wireline operators are facing considerable competitive challenges, and the decision of when to move to a fiber-based infrastructure is not an easy one. Each operator must carefully consider its unique circumstances and determine whether it has the financial means and other resources to pull off such a huge undertaking. For some, the most viable business case is achieved by prolonging the life of the existing copper plant. Innovative new access technologies such as vectoring make this possible. By extending the range and speed of VDSL2 networks, vectoring helps telcos keep costs down and market share up – so that they can transition to fiber at a pace that’s right for them. v

| BROADBAND COMMUNITIES | www.broadbandcommunities.com | March/April 2012

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Proving the Link Between Broadband and Economic Development To make a convincing case for building next-generation broadband, communities must share information about the benefits broadband delivers. By Ken Demlow ■ NewCom Technologies

H

ow can we prove that fiber-based broadband delivers economic benefits? At the 2011 FTTH Conference in Orlando, Fla., David Russell, the solutions marketing director for access equipment vendor Calix and an industry spokesman and leader, showed that proving fiber’s benefits can be extremely difficult and challenged the audience to come up with better methods of proof. (See “FTTH Lights the Economy” in the November/December 2011 issue of this magazine.) Graham Richard, another industry leader and a former mayor of Fort Wayne, Ind., commented in a May 2011 interview with James Lardner: “From the point of view of retaining and gaining jobs, I can give you example after example.… What I don’t have is a longterm, double-blind study that says it was just broadband.” However, “as a leader, sometimes you go with your gut,” Richard said, adding that his gut tells him infrastructure investments are “probably the most long-lasting and important decisions that local leaders make.” THE CHALLENGES Proving the economic benefits of broadband is challenging because broadband is never the only factor. For example, a business chooses a site based not only on broadband but also on location, incentives, affinities and so forth. Broadband can play an important part, but the other factors make it hard to assess

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How much economic success is due to broadband is difficult to measure – especially as definitions of success may differ from place to place. broadband’s impact. Similarly, increases in wage scales or in higher-paying jobs in an area may be due to an upturn in the economy in general or to the emergence of a new sector in the economy that is helping everyone. How much is due to broadband is difficult to determine. In addition, definitions of success may differ. Not everyone is trying to land a large industry or call center. For example, Pam Lehmann, the head of economic development for Lac Qui Parle County, Minn., pointed out to me that helping residents stay in a rural area can be as important as new companies’ coming into the area. Lac Qui Parle’s economic development efforts are geared as much to providing services and opportunities for existing residents as to attracting new employers. Measuring that kind of success is tricky.

In the last few years, economic studies and surveys have begun to accumulate evidence that broadband generates economic growth and better broadband generates more growth. Many of those studies have been discussed in this magazine, so I won’t go into them here other than to suggest that all stakeholders continue to educate themselves about these findings. Here, I’d like to suggest how to use anecdotal information to help make the case for broadband and to derive the greatest benefit from broadband networks. EXAMPLES I am fortunate to work with people I like, but I see them only every other month or so. Most of my work is done over the Internet and cell phones, which would not be possible without high-

About the Author Ken Demlow is the national business development manager for NewCom Technologies, which performs engineering services and network data management, including GIS plant mapping and smart-grid deployment, for the telecommunications industry. You can reach him at [email protected] or 765-366-8370.

| BROADBAND COMMUNITIES | www.broadbandcommunities.com | March/April 2012

ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT speed Internet access. I am exhibit one, a person able to work from home (or hotel) because of broadband, but I’m far from the only example. Washington State University researchers recently completed case studies of seven people who were able to stay in their small towns only because high-speed Internet was available. One was a teleworker, as I am. Another was a sole proprietor, a third was a start-up entrepreneur and a fourth opened a branch office of his employer’s business. Others benefited from business growth, business relocation or outsourcing made possible by broadband. I am sure we could find even more kinds of examples in Chattanooga, Tenn. ­– recently named one of the world’s seven most intelligent communities by the Intelligent Community Forum – which provides ideas and guidance as it uses broadband to turn itself into a technology and innovation hub. Chattanooga is also a leader in using broadband for smart-grid technology. As I know from working with smart meter/smart grid projects, the more fiber there is available and the closer it is to customer premises, the more opportunities utilities have to save large amounts of money for customers and themselves and to benefit the environment. The Milken Institute, an economic think tank, ranks the top-performing cities in the nation by job creation, job retention, economic growth, wages and other measures. Figure 1 shows the Milken list of the top 15 small cities, together with information that I collected from the National Broadband Map about broadband availability. All these cities have good Internet speeds and quite a bit of competition. City officials from several of these cities told me they didn’t dwell on Internet speeds in discussions with potential new businesses. Rather, they made sure any prospective company knew that adequate broadband was available, then moved on to other economic development topics. Having adequate speed was critical so that broadband wouldn’t be a negative. Shaun Arneson, vice president of the Iowa Lakes Corridor Development

Broadband is coordinated with other aspects of economic development to make a package that is extremely strong. Corporation, says broadband is a key piece of the economic development package and is coordinated with other pieces to make a package that is extremely strong. When Paul Froutan, director of hardware operations for Google, made the decision to open a facility in the area, he noted, “In Council Bluffs, Iowa, we found one of the best locations around the world with the right combination of infrastructure capacity and other resources to support an Internet data center of this size.” Again, broadband wasn’t the only factor, but it had to be in place for other factors to work. Rochelle, Ill., deployed fiber in the early years of broadband and used that to appeal to businesses that needed high capacity. In 2007, Allstate Insurance agreed to build a 50,000-square-foot data center in Rochelle’s technology

RANK 1

CITY Logan, UT

park – a development that Rochelle City Manager Ken Alberts said would help the city’s efforts to attract high-tech jobs and technology-based companies. Again, broadband wasn’t the only factor that brought this company to Rochelle, but it was an important factor. Midwest TeleServices International decided to locate a call center in Moulton, Iowa, and celebrated its grand opening in January 2012. An August 2011 article in the Daily Iowegian highlights two factors that attracted Midwest TeleServices: Moulton’s workforce and the fiber that Farmer’s Mutual Telephone Co. had deployed. Yet another way to measure success is negatively – by not being left behind. Could a person be unable to sell a house because of a lack of high-speed Internet access? If a city doesn’t have broadband,

TOP ADVERTISED BROADBAND SPEED (MBPS) 50 – 100

PROVIDER

NUMBER OF PROVIDERS OFFERING > 3 Mbps

Comcast

4

2

Bismarck, ND

50 – 100

Midcontinent

3

3

Morgantown, WV

50 – 100

Comcast

4

4

College Station, TX

50 – 100

Suddenlink

2

5

Ithaca, NY

50 – 100

Time Warner

3

6

Lebanon, PA

1,000

Level 3

5

7

Fargo, ND

10 – 25

Cable One

4

8

Iowa City, IA

50 – 100

Mediacom

5

9

Longview, TX

10 – 25

Longview

3

10

State College, PA

100 – 1,000

Getwireless

4

11

Warner Robbins, GA 25 – 50

Cox

4

12

Waco, TX

10 – 25

Grande

10

13

Las Cruces, NM

10 – 25

Comcast

5

14

Charlottsville, VA

1,000

Level 3

4

15

Dubuque, IA

10 – 25

Mediacom

4

Figure 1: Small cities rated as top performers by the Milken Institute

March/April 2012 | www.broadbandcommunities.com | BROADBAND COMMUNITIES |

69

ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT Sharing best practices can help all communities make good use of their advanced broadband networks. will jobs just go to other places? Will those who can’t communicate with their doctors from home miss opportunities to take control of their health? Fear of the negative isn’t always the best motivator – but it has its place in this discussion. BEST PRACTICES People are using broadband successfully to make a difference in their communities. Some of these are methods that we can all consider for our own areas. Gig Tank: Chattanooga leads the way in a lot of areas, and this is another one. The city has annual 48-hour entrepreneurial blitzes that bring the necessary expertise together to help people start businesses. A start-up accelerator takes advantage of and highlights the city’s gigabit-level broadband. Incubators can also help businesses start and succeed. They can take advantage of and highlight broadband and promote technology businesses. There are challenges, but there can also be grant dollars and community excitement. I have worked with setting up incubators and using broadband to help. It is exciting but needs a lot of planning, commitment and sources of financing. Computer Commuter: To help people become more comfortable with computers so they could take advantage of broadband, Lac Qui Parle County developed a computer training center on wheels. Regional Broadband Planning: Many areas of the country are forming regional groups to promote broadband deployment, adoption and economic development. These can be at the level of the state, county, group of counties or cities, geographic region and so forth. By working with several of these groups, I have become convinced of their importance in defining regional goals and cooperation and in bringing together re-

70

gional financial resources. They need a strong focus, goals and procedures, but they can do tremendous good. EXTENDING THE CHALLENGE Proving the role of broadband helps municipalities, institutions and companies know what they need to do to ensure they have adequate broadband. The financial costs can be significant, and the better the industry can define the benefits, the easier it is for participants to get involved and commit capital. However, that proof is nuanced and takes work. I was impressed by David Russell’s challenge at the FTTH Conference. Now I would like to extend this challenge to you. A lot of work is being done on this subject – research, surveys, economic development teams and regional teams working, companies making decisions, best practices – and industry members should work together to share the results. I am volunteering to set up a clearinghouse for information on broadband success stories. If you hear of a research effort about broadband, email me about it, and I will include it. If you hear of an economic development effort that involves broadband, email me, and I will keep track of it. If you hear of a company that made a location decision (either to newly locate or to stay) and broadband was part of the decision, please let me know. If you hear of something that a municipality or company is doing that involves the promotion or use of broadband (a best practice), please send me a quick email. I will verify the information, post it on the NewCom website, www.newcomtech.com, and help publicize it. Information coming in from all across the country will help people keep moving forward to prove the economic benefits of broadband. Thank you for your help, and keep up the good work. v

| BROADBAND COMMUNITIES | www.broadbandcommunities.com | March/April 2012

IPT V

Getting Started With Video Advertising For new video providers, local ad insertion can be expensive and daunting. But there are benefits – notably, being able to promote their own services – and third-party specialists are available to help. By Jack Olson ■ Viamedia

M

ost companies that deploy fiber to the home decide to offer pay TV as a service on their networks. After all, fiber is extraordinarily good at delivering video, and video attracts customers. However, for deployers that may have originally been in the telephone or electrical power or wireless broadband business, becoming video providers is a giant leap. Even after rolling out fiber, there’s a lot to do before airing the first TV show. A new provider must obtain a video franchise, build a video headend, install software to run the electronic program guide and the advanced services that get customers’ attention, negotiate programming rights, market the new services to customers and install the services at the customer premises. Each one of these tasks is a major undertaking – and this list just scratches the surface. Luckily, the video platform itself is a great tool to promote video services. Providers have the ability to insert local advertising into the video stream, and perhaps the most important businesses to advertise are their own. As a provider, why should you promote your own services? For one thing, doing so can help you gain more subscribers. This seems counterintuitive – if people are watching the service, aren’t they already subscribers? – until you remember that many viewers first encounter a video service when visiting friends or when sitting in a bar, restaurant or

72

Service providers can increase revenues by advertising on their own video platforms. doctor’s office. Even if viewers are already subscribers and are watching TV at home, reminding them who you are helps build loyalty and increase retention rates. You can also use advertising to sell new, revenue-generating services such as VoD, DVR and business services (local business owners watch TV, too!) – or to persuade subscribers to bundle voice and broadband with their video service. Finally, you can use ads to promote tutorials about your services and technology. Consumers easily become frustrated with new technology if they can’t quickly figure out how to use it. Shortform videos of two to four minutes can help them master new devices and features. You can place the videos on a special section of your VoD platform and then use cross-channel, 30-second ads to help subscribers find the videos.

Keys to Success Succeeding with self-promotional ads requires careful attention to producing ads, scheduling them and maximizing

branding opportunities. Most important is making sure messages are clear and well-scripted. Production values are critical, too – video quality should be on a par with everything else that appears on your stations. To schedule ads, determine which audience demographics you’re trying to reach and then find out which networks they watch and which times of day they’re likely to watch them. To make the most of branding opportunities, be certain that every message, advertisement, tutorial or any other communication reinforces your brand. Always emphasize the qualities you want customers to associate with your company, whether that’s high-tech expertise, local presence or superior service. You can promote other brands as well, of course – many programmers and providers offer financial incentives or co-op marketing dollars if you use their promo spots and tag them or reinforce their brand in a particular way in your advertising.

About the Author Jack Olson is the vice president for business development of Viamedia, the largest non-MSO-affiliated video ad sales organization in the United States. You can reach him at [email protected].

| BROADBAND COMMUNITIES | www.broadbandcommunities.com | March/April 2012

IPT V The Cost of Entry

The downside of video advertising is that it isn’t cheap. Creating and inserting high-quality ads requires a substantial investment in terms of both money and effort. On the ad creation side, you’re not on your own – strategic partners can help. Some production companies create syndicated promotional, sales and tutorial videos that can be tailored and tagged specifically for each market. By buying and customizing their videos, you can get superior products at a very affordable cost. Alternatively, you can join forces with video providers in nearby markets to form a marketing cooperative. Pooling resources among a group of companies is a good way to create high-production-quality videos at a reasonable cost. On the ad insertion side, hardware costs can be very steep. The illustration shows where ad insertion fits into the video distribution system. The cost of hardware, such as servers, depends to some extent on the video distribution platform used – for example, the GigE servers required for IPTV, the platform used by most FTTH deployers, are relatively costly. Costs also depend on where in your lineup you insert ads. Running ads on high-definition channels incurs extra costs, though neglecting HD channels means missing a large part of your target audience. Costs also vary a great deal among vendors, so shopping around is mandatory. Digital insertion also requires grooming and splicing hardware as well as a license for each network feed you splice into. You may need at least one additional employee to manage promotional efforts, traffic and schedules. Finally, assuming that you wouldn’t invest in ad insertion unless you were going to sell ads to other local businesses, you need sales and support staff to do the right job.

Partnering With a Third Party

For smaller providers that can’t achieve the economies of scale of the Tier 1 providers and may not have a large enough local advertiser base to recoup the costs of ad insertion equipment, partnering with a third-party expert, such as Viamedia,

How Viamedia’s ad insertion process fits into a video distribution network

may make sense. The partner may absorb a significant portion of the variable hardware cost in return for being able to sell national advertising or direct-response ads (the kind that ask viewers to dial a toll-free number right away). An independent ad insertion partner can offer other benefits, too. For example, it can provide access to expensive resources, such as research data and technical expertise. Research data can help you identify your market, schedule ads to reach the right target audiences or target sales efforts for business broadband services. A third-party partner can even assist in producing ads, scheduling and, of course, selling ads, thus eliminating the need to hire additional personnel.

video providers in your market. Either of these approaches makes your subscribers more desirable by aggregating them with others to form a larger market. There’s no magic number of subscribers that guarantees a profitable advertising venture, but to illustrate the difficulties of operating on a small scale without help, assume that you have 3,000 subscribers and that advertising sales amount to $30 per subscriber per year – which is more than you are likely to see in the first year. This equates to gross revenues of $90,000 per year, not enough to cover staff salaries, let alone equipment and operating costs. That’s why audience aggregation is so important.

Advertising Revenues

Launching an advertising program may be daunting, but it can also be a great opportunity. First, determine what a self-promotional advertising campaign could be worth to you. Research the cost of entry and of ongoing operations, and meet with neighboring video providers to discuss opportunities for sharing equipment, producing ads cooperatively and aggregating your audiences to sell advertising. Then, find out what services thirdparty strategic partners can provide and what those services will cost. With all this information, you’ll be ready to compare the costs and benefits of in-house efforts versus third-party involvement and to develop your plan. Don’t make the mistake of doing nothing! v

Using advertising to promote your own services is certainly beneficial, but can you expect to make a profit from selling advertising to other businesses? That depends on the size and desirability of your local market. On average, 75 to 80 percent of video advertising revenue is driven by local sales, so a dynamic local business community is key to selling advertising, as is a local advertising sales force. Obviously, the number of TV subscribers you have is important to both local and national advertisers; being in a larger market helps. You may also attract advertising by cooperating with other nearby video providers or by partnering with a third party that represents other

Conclusion

March/April 2012 | www.broadbandcommunities.com | BROADBAND COMMUNITIES |

73

BROADBAND COMMUNITIES Marketplace To reserve space in this section and LEVERAGE the power of your advertising via print, digital, and multimedia exposure in T:3.375” the global market, contact Irene Prescott at 505-867-2668 or email [email protected].

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©2011 AT&T Intellectual Property. All rights reserved. AT&T and the AT&T logo are trademarks of AT&T Intellectual Property. All other marks contained herein are the property of their respective owners.

From design to deployment...

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Ad Index Advertiser Page 3M Adtran Anritsu Advanced Media Technologies AT&T Connected Communities Atlantic Engineering Group ATX Networks Blonder Tongue Broadband Communities Calix Charles Industries Charter Communications Clearfield, Inc. Comcast Connexion Technologies Corning Cable Systems COS Systems Cox Communications Design Nine Display Systems, Int’l FTTH Conference G4S Technology Great Lakes Data Matrix Design Group Multicom, Inc. Multilink OFS Power & Tel Supply Spot On Networks Sumitomo Electric Lightwave Televes Tellabs The Mesh Networks Time Warner Cable Verizon Enhanced Communities Walker & Associates

Calendar Website

21, 33 www.3m.com/onepass 34, 39 www.adtran.com/access 5, 34 www.antritsu.com 24, 34 www.amt.com 35, 75, Inside Back Cover www.att.com 35, 67 www.atlanticinc.cc 35 www.atxnetworks.com 36 www.blondertongue.com 53, 75 www.bbcmag.com 36 www.calix.com 37, 70 www.charlesindustries.com 9, 37 www.chartercom.com 37, 66 www.clearfieldconnection.com 38, 45 www.xfinity.com/multifamily 75 www.cnxntech.com 38, 75, Back Cover www.corning.com/cablesystems 38 www.cossystems.com 38 www.cox.com 40, 47 www.designnine.com 30, 40 www.displaysystemsintl.com 74 www.ftthconference.com 25, 40 www.g4stechnology.com 36, 41 www.glds.com 31, 41 www.matrixdg.com/experience 42, 63 www.multicominc.com 42 www.gomultilink.com 43 www.ofsoptics.com 1, 43 www.ptsupply.com 43, 71 www.spotonnetworks.com 44 www.sumitomoelectriclightwave.com 44 www.televes-usa.com 7, 46 www.tellabs.com 42, 62 www.themeshnetworks.com 3, 46 www.timewarnercable.com Inside Front Cover, 46, 75 www.verizon.com/communities 47, 59 www.walkerfirst.com

2012 June 6–8 Intelligent Community Forum Platforms for Innovation Polytechnic Institute of New York University New York, NY 646-291-6166 28 – 30 NAA Education Conference & Expo Boston Convention Center Boston, MA 703-518-6141 www.naahq.org September 16 – 20 BICSI Fall Conference & Exhibition Anaheim Convention Center Anaheim, CA 813-979-1991 www.bicsi.org 23 – 27 FTTH Conference & Expo Hilton Anatole Dallas, TX 613-226-9988 www.ftthconference.com November 12 – 14 NMHC Apartment Operations & Technology Conference & Expo Hyatt Regency Dallas Dallas, TX 202-974-2318 www.nmhc.org

2013 April 16 – 18 Broadband Communities Summit InterContinental Hotel – Dallas Addison, Texas 877-588-1649 www.bbcmag.com

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| BROADBAND COMMUNITIES | www.broadbandcommunities.com | March/April 2012