agreed, joe. there is a lot of fiber in the ground (at least long-haul fiber). the key is the buildout beyond the long-haul. a perfect example would be National Broadband...and this is the first time i've actually seen this particular article (much more detail than others that i've seen)...notice the IBM servers being used. interesting, given the IBM/MRV alliance...i wonder which one referred the other (if at all)?
Nationwide Broadband Wireless Service — The Dream Returns
National Broadband Has Proposed a Wholesale Broadband Wireless Network Across Rural America Using Williams Communications’ Fiber Network
By Timothy Sanders
It’s been some time since anyone launched a broadband wireless initiative with bold vision.
Two or three years ago, it seemed that Sprint, WorldCom, Winstar and others would build broadband wireless access networks on a national scale. The future then seemed blindingly bright.
Of course, that vision never came to pass. Large-scale national buildout ambitions were blunted or dropped in the face of the telecom crash of the last two years. The small pool of investment money needed to launch such networks mostly dried up.
Today, no one is considering such an idea, right? Not so, because in April of this year, National Broadband announced plans for a nationwide broadband wireless initiative utilizing Williams Communications’ fiber network. The concept was also presented at the Broadband Wireless World show in San Jose, Calif.
The Fiber Connection
National Broadband was formed in 2002 in Aspen, Colo. to deliver service to rural U.S. communities. Steve Collin, National Broadband’s president and CEO, began the company by seeking out opportunities with like-minded fiber carriers.
“We found Williams Communications was examining technical concepts to bring broadband to underserved areas,” Collin said. “We both quickly realized that this could be a nationwide opportunity for us both.”
These conversations with Williams in late 2002 resulted in a contract deal in November. National Broadband emerged with an exclusive arrangement for Williams to deploy a gateway at each of its 422 fiber network nodes.
“For our part, it was an opportunity to own and operate a nationwide access network with only the cost of gateways being necessary to leverage the launch,” Collin said. “The timing for both Wiltel and ourselves was very fortuitous.”
A Nationwide Network
The Williams fiber network covers approximately 37,000 route miles across the United States. This network is one of the newest in the nation, with much of it passing through rural communities.
“There is significant fiber in the U.S. that passes rural communities that have absolutely no access to it,” Collin said. “We intend to open this just-out-of-reach capacity and offer it to these communities.”
It’s possible to provide service to these communities because the Williams fiber network is built somewhat differently from other networks.
Typically, on tier 1 nationwide fiber loops, there are a series of regeneration (or “regen”) sites deployed every 80 to 150 miles. These regen sites range from one-third to one-half acre in size and house each telco’s gateway equipment. Williams’s fiber has 422 nodes, with a node located every 40 miles on the fiber. This last element is important in a wireless deployment.
“There are two big advantages to this deal for us,” Collin said. “We found a carrier with lots of rural fiber willing to grant exclusive access to a third party and a network with nodes close enough to make comprehensive wireless coverage work.”
National Broadband cannot cover every state and town in the nation. It plans to reach every town within a minimum 25-mile radius of every node on the network. This is still a potentially enormous footprint.
“We can deliver point-to-point service to partners with wireless links as much as 40 miles away,” Collin said. “We plan to use both licensed and unlicensed links with commercially available products at up to 155 Mbps [OC-3].”
In order to provision wireless from these nodes, a new type of gateway needs to be installed. National Broadband chose MRV Communications to provide its laser gateways for the network. Essentially each node will receive a new gateway that translates directly from backbone fiber to wireless and/or wireless access. Each gateway offers eight separate ports per switch. The close proximity of each node means that the gateway lasers can be much cheaper.
The Business Case
Conceived from the start as a wholesale play, National Broadband intends to work with local partners, such as dial-up ISPs, to convert rural subscribers to broadband wireless access subscribers. National Broadband envisions working with an initial preferred partner in each market. The company will then design and build a wireless network to serve its partner’s customer base.
National Broadband’s goal is to provision the network 60 days from an agreement (once gateways are deployed). The partner would purchase bandwidth, services (if desired) and wireless network access, on a wholesale basis, to sell to its customers.
“We see our ‘sweet spot’ community to be one with 20,000 to 50,000 residents,” Collin said. “We’re shooting for about ten percent of the population to upgrade to broadband services in our markets.”
This approach offers several advantages. For National Broadband and Williams, working with partner companies with existing subscriber bases offers lower investment risks and quicker potential paybacks. For local rural partners, the opportunity to skip local loop interconnection charges by connecting directly to tier 1 fiber is hard to pass up. Rural partners gain the benefit of a high-margin, ready-built broadband solution and avoid the local telco’s longer provisioning times.
As a separate business, National Broadband plans a comprehensive wholesale backhaul solution.
“Many of the nationwide PCS carriers are in discussions with us about providing backhaul bandwidth,” Collin said. “They see enormous potential savings and flexible, scalable bandwidth.”
National Broadband sees bottlenecks for these carriers.
“Eighty percent of cell site backhauls are done on T-1s, with the next jump being to OC-3s,” Collin said. “We can offer PCS carriers flexible, per megabit bandwidth and pricing for each site.”
Utilities, ISPs, government agencies and others will need backhaul for either prime bandwidth or redundant backup. Collin believes sales will increase through additional services facilitated by its partnerships.
Technology Partnerships
National Broadband’s choice of MRV to deploy new gateways at each regen site created the opportunity to add new servers and software with leading-edge capabilities.
Collin explained that the MRV gateways convert directly to wireless connections or wireline in order to support voice and other services. The close proximity of the nodes makes this affordable.
The company’s initiative attracted the attention of Tarari (an Intel Portfolio Company). Tarari’s technology is based on “reconfigurable silicon,” which provides for the real-time retasking of its processors to optimize certain services. By being able to reconfigure the network within 25 milliseconds, National Broadband can optimize services for clients without having to build separate, costly servers for every function.
“This ability allows us to provide unique applications to individual customers,” Collin said. “The capacity is so powerful, it’s like having a supercomputer doing gigabit processing at the network edge.”
National Broadband has a partnership with IBM to provide servers, which will run Microsoft’s new 2003 server system. National Broadband also contracted with InterKnowlogy to develop content processing software that provides accelerated customized capabilities for National Broadband’s customers.
These are impressive near-term capabilities, but what is the company’s future vision?
“Our five-year vision is to bring the same urban center capabilities to Idaho as New York has,” Collin said.
The first leg of gateway deployments from San Diego to Seattle is due to begin in May 2003. Collin explained that Williams is contracted to deploy the full network within 12 months.
About the Author: Tim Sanders is founder of The Final Mile, a fixed wireless consulting group. His experience was gained running a multistate fixed wireless ISP. He can be reached at tim@thefinalmile.net
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