Wireless, Powerline Team for Showcase Deployment
Broadband Business Forecast
Broadband Business Forecast
Wednesday, November 3, 2004
Down around Baton Rouge, La., one of the most unusual broadband
deployments in the United States is underway - a hybrid mlange of a pre-WiMax wireless backbone, proprietary in-building broadband over powerline (BPL)technology where the user density is high enough and, as the frosting on the cake, a Wi-Fi mesh. The whole thing's so unorthodox that ISPs from thousands of miles away have begun checking in to find out how it all works and to take a look at the economics involved, particularly at the bottom-line capex that is
said to be only one third to one half of that of what it might have cost using copper and fiber.
Broadband Business Forecast got together with senior executives from
Super Net, the ISP behind the installation; Telkonet [TKO], whose BPL technology has been quietly gaining traction in the hotel and apartment market; and BelAir
Networks, a 36-month-old Canadian company that's starting to make waves in the sexy new Wi-Fi Mesh market. For those not ready to make the pilgrimage to Cajun country for themselves, we'll tell you what we've learned.
The whole thing's the brainchild of ISP Super Net, which was looking for
the least expensive way possible to bring its broadband services to thousands of Louisiana State University (LSU) students living off campus in a neighborhood of
apartment buildings and four-, six-, and eight-plexes, almost all built back in the 1960s when nobody even dreamed of today's broadband connectivity needs. The whole neighborhood is out of range of DSL service of any sort, although there is
cable broadband in the area.
The goal, Super Net President Kevin Dufresne and COO Mark McAlpine told
BBF, is to blanket the area with broadband services that reach all 2,200 housing units - which accommodate about 3,500 students - plus local businesses that serve those students.
Wireless Backbone
The first key to the deployment, says Dufrense, was that SuperNet already
had a Wave2Wave wireless backbone, which it had bought from MCI. The Wave2Wave system delivers a T1 full-duplex backbone roughly seven miles from a downtown Baton Rouge office building to the student-housing neighborhood. Because none of
the end users have to access the system, the fact that it's proprietary is irrelevant.
"When WiMax is available, all of us will use it as a tool," he says.
BelAir might sell its first systems with WiMax backhaul as early as next year,he estimates. But it will be another three or four years until the technology might be used to then distribute bandwidth from the backbone closer to, or perhaps directly to, end users. |
