Maxwell J. Toms
49
Julian Street, Carleton Place, Ontario, Canada, K7C 3W7
mjtoms@sympatico.ca (613) 257-7290
Fibre-Optics!
The
technology of choice for broadband distribution!
It
took 75 years for many rural areas to get one of these. The Internet was known to be the emerging
communications tool of choice for government and business as far back as the
mid 1990s.
How long will it take for rural areas to get connected
with the kind of bandwidth that will actually make a difference to their
economy?
Consider a rural printer, who needs to download a 3-Mbyte graphic from an advertiser 60 miles away, lay out, reprint and return it for acceptance. This is what can be expected with the following transfer speeds:
· Sneaker net @ 60 mph, 1 hour return: 120 minutes
· Dialup @ 14,400 Bps, (Typical Rural Transfer rate 1-3 Kbytes/sec): 25 minutes
· Dialup @ 28,800 Bps (Unlikely Rural Transfer rate 2-4 Kbytes/sec): 18 minutes
· T1 @ 1.544 Mbps (Typical Transfer rate 900-1200 Kbytes/sec): 2.8 seconds
· Fibre-Optic cable @ @ 10-100 Mbps (Typical Transfer rate 4500-8000 Kbytes/sec): >1 second
It doesn’t take many transactions per day
using rural dial-up to run up a significant bill in bandwidth minutes and
employee time. Hence the extra cost burden for business, particularly small
business to operate under conditions where communication is necessary. It may
be competitors overseas can compete with Canadian business chiefly because we
refuse to properly equip our rural areas, leading further to their decline!
The above example is a very modest file. Downloading larger files are nearly impossible, because a local ISP generally cannot retain a dial-up connection for the number of hours required. On the other hand, one can see that a good broadband connection will easily pay for itself through saving otherwise wasted time. By the way, we all pay for this, even if only indirectly!
For GIS, engineering and medicine, drawings, maps, RAW Photos, x-rays, scans and other medical files can range to 45 Mbytes and beyond. Most of these transactions are bi-directional, i.e. they need the speed in both directions. This need, and the bandwidths required are increasing!
Equipping only targeted government or community services operations is not the answer. This is a divide-and-conquer process, while a great benefit to the major carriers, is definitely not a benefit to the taxpayer. It is the currently poorly equipped local business and the great “unwashed” rural masses are the best, if not the only hope for an improved economy.
So to stimulate debate on the need for not only broadband, but also fibre-optic networks, I developed a model of a ‘typical’ Ontario community called Anywhere, Ontario. This is a rural small town (some might call a village) with 928 homes and 139 places of business and community services. The model describes a fibre build in detail and includes all the equipment required, right down to the pole anchor. The design provides a duplex connection to all homes and commercial spaces and includes the customer premise equipment (CPE).
The cost and pricing model, viewed via the buttons below, shows such a network is affordable. It would protect rural business, and provide the potential for more, should communities meet other requirements for business, such as space, taxes, and utilities, and the right labour, all at appropriate prices.
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Information in this document is subject to change without notice.
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