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Technology Stocks : The *NEW* Frank Coluccio Technology Forum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Frank A. Coluccio who wrote (4118)	10/21/2001 9:58:12 AM
From: Stang	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 46821

Re: Sewer & Fiber: Here's a project in Ottawa Canada. Stream uses robots to wire Ottawa sewers with fibre-optic cable By Amanda Graham, InBusiness Media Network Toronto-based Stream Intelligent Networks has found a way to connect Ottawa fibre-optic network without digging. Ottawa Mayor Robert Chiarelli said Thursday he will let Stream access the city's sewer system. The company will use robots to feed the fibre-optic cable through the system and into Ottawa homes. The project will take much less time, money and disruption than traditional open-trench construction. The first leg of the new fibre-optic telecommunications network will be installed in Ottawa's downtown. Known as "Silicon Valley North," the city urgently needs a high-speed, high-bandwidth telecommunications infrastructure to support the high-tech industry, the company said. "A study commissioned by the City of Ottawa on the subject of utility trenching told us that the life of road pavement is reduced by over 32 per cent in areas where pavement has been compromised by construction," Chiarelli said. "[This system] permits the city to eliminate those on-going repair costs, rapidly install the telecommunications infrastructure our institutions, corporate and private citizens demand, and do it without the intrusive construction that has been so disruptive to traffic and to business. Everybody wins," said Chiarelli. The 1.8-metre long robots are remote-controlled with five TV cameras to monitor operations. Stream Intelligent Networks Corp. provides broadband communications and dark fibre to telecommunications carriers and large volume data users in metropolitan areas. ottawabusinessjournal.com Sewer-bound robot saves city streets By Brian Salisbury, Ottawa Business Journal A new method of installing fibre optic cable in the downtown core should save the city and its streets considerable time, money and a whole lot of digging. Toronto-based Stream Intelligent Networks signed an agreement with the City of Ottawa in late September to install fibre optic cable through the city's sewer system, bypassing costly and time-consuming open-trench construction. The city chose Stream based on the efficiency and cost-effectiveness of the technique, says City of Ottawa surface projects manager Lorne Ross. "What we understand is that this can be 30 to 40 per cent less expensive than the trenching works,” he says. "Plus you get the noise, you get the pollution, you get the traffic disruptions, and the dirt and the dust, et cetera, et cetera. There are a lot of negative impacts to trenching works. This new technology eliminates a lot of those negative impacts.” And even if a company wished to go the traditional route, Ross is unsure there would be enough space to accommodate it. "In terms of space with the downtown roads, there is hardly any space left,” he says. "The roads are fully occupied with stuff already — sewer pipes, water pipes, hydro pipes, other telecom stuff. Our roads in downtown Ottawa are just as congested with this kind of stuff as are the streets in downtown Toronto.” Perhaps the most negative impact of open-trench construction to be avoided is the impact on roads. In evaluating Stream's value proposition, it commissioned a study that found the utility trenching reduced the life of a paved street by 32 per cent. Even Stream's VP of business development, Franco Lofranco, was surprised at the findings. "(Thirty-two per cent) is phenomenal. I mean I wasn't even aware it was that bad. Cities are really struggling with the decision of having fibre at the cost of destroying their streets.” Stream will actually pay the City of Ottawa to install the cable, making money by selling access to the network to telecom carriers. It is now marketing the network to telecom carriers, such as Bell and Telus. "We should have some carrier contracts to announce in the next couple of weeks,” says Lofranco. Stream plans to start laying cable through the sewers before Christmas. Lofranco says it should take three weeks to lay down the four to five kilometres of cable planned for Ottawa's downtown core. From start to finish, Stream can plan, design and install a fibre network in about six to eight weeks, while open-trench construction techniques might take up to 13 months. The cable is laid manually first, and then a remote-controlled robot is lowered into the sewer to fasten the cable to the sewage pipes. This technology originated in Japan more than 10 years ago, and then spread to Germany. Now, Canada and the United States use the technology to link carriers to paying customers. Stream is the only company in Canada with rights to the technology. Basically, what Stream does is pay a city to have access to its sewer pipes, and then turns around and sells access to the fibre-optic network to carriers. To date, Stream has focused mainly on the GTA, having deployed 10 kilometres of cable in Mississauga and an additional 10 kilometres in metro Toronto. A third network is in the works for Richmond Hill as well. In addition to Ottawa, the company is looking to market its technology in other major urban centres, such as Montreal and Calgary. The Ottawa network alone could bag Stream in excess of $1 million. "It could be $1 million or it could be more. There are a few considerations. It depends on how quickly enterprise-class customers will be taking new bandwidth applications and internalizing them in their corporations. It's really customer driven.” ottawabusinessjournal.com Stang

To: Frank A. Coluccio who wrote (4118)	10/21/2001 11:15:04 AM
From: dwight martin	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 46821

[Is evildoer one word or two?] Let's see, in the Classics Illustrated series I think it was one, while in Marvel's Fantastic Four, wasn't it two?