Groups to Bring Gigabit Connectivity to Six U.S. Markets Blair Levin's University-Centric Approach to Ramping up Connectivity Thursday May 24 2012 14:45 EDT An Ohio startup named Gigabit Squared, in conjunction with Gig U (a consortium of 30 research universities across the country) this week announced that they've launched a new program dedicated to bringing gigabit broadband speeds to six communities across the country. Through a new initiative dubbed The Gigabit Neighborhood Gateway Program, the groups have secured $200 Million in funding to help improve the connected fortunes of six U.S. communities. Those six communities are likely be university areas, as both Michigan State and the University of Maine have already been building such networks with the help fo Gig U. "What makes the Gigabit Squared approach so exciting is that it goes far beyond normal industry business models in how to successfully and creatively improve broadband access speeds for university communities, which is exactly the premise upon which Gig.U was founded," said Blair Levin, Executive Director of Gig.U. "We intuitively knew this, but to see Gigabit Squared emerge so strongly today proves that yes, America needs an upgrade; and that yes, there are innovators and investors willing to step up to get it done." Levin was the man behind the U.S. broadband plan, which we've criticized for years as being a show-pony-half-effort that utterly failed to address the nation's biggest broadband problem: a lack of serious competition. Levin's focus since has been to use stimulus funding to help improve university areas. In Maine, for example, stimulus funding and help from the University of Maine and Great Works Internet is helping to bring 1 Gbps connectivity to a market where the private sector has largely failed -- consisting primarily of economically-shaky Fairpoint Communications. What if you're in a market that has no competition and no university to act as a connectivity launching pad? Good question. |
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Easy with free money"Levin's focus since has been to use stimulus funding to help improve university areas."
It's a lot easier to be successful when you get "free" money from the government. | |
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Re: Easy with free moneythere is no such thing as "free money" | |
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Re: Easy with free moneyYes, that's why I put it in quotes. | |
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| me1212 join:2008-11-20 Lees Summit, MO ·Google Fiber
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Whats with the focus on universities? Why not other areas where people actually live in more permanent state?
Also when you say stimulus you mean the broadband stimulus from a few years ago? I thought the broadband stimulus money was supposed to be spent on connecting places that dont have broadband not place that do. | |
| | | whfsdude Premium Member join:2003-04-05 Washington, DC |
whfsdude
Premium Member
2012-May-24 4:43 pm
Re: Easy with free moneysaid by me1212:Whats with the focus on universities? Why not other areas where people actually live in more permanent state? The reason the universities is because they have the middle mile network in many states. Combine that with the fact that they just have to pay a connector fee to get peering on Internet 2 TR-CPS. Eg. Middle mile network. » www.maineren.net/ | |
| | | | me1212 join:2008-11-20 Lees Summit, MO |
me1212
Member
2012-May-24 10:14 pm
Re: Easy with free moneyIf its the middle mile thats understandable, but not all are. Plus improving the middle mile doesn't magically wire places that were not wired before. The broadband stimulus was created to wire unwired places not give wired places more wire. | |
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to me1212
I went to the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) in Chicago. It is located around 3300 South Michigan Ave. Surrounded by public housing projects and neighborhoods that had half of the lots vacant from neglected or arson buildings having been torn down. There are other colleges in similar situations. Traditional neighborhood and business revitalization programs would be greatly helped if you could add in the capabilities of gigabit symmetrical internet service. One way to do that is to expand the university or college internet capability into the surrounding area. | |
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| SimbaSevenI Void Warranties join:2003-03-24 Billings, MT ·StarLink
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said by Automate:It's a lot easier to be successful when you get "free" money from the government. ..you mean our increasing tuition costs is not actually covering their infrastructure upgrades? | |
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elray join:2000-12-16 Santa Monica, CA |
elray
Member
2012-May-24 3:28 pm
What if?What if the majority of your community and neighbors don't want to pay for FTTH? | |
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Re: What if?Move? | |
| | 45612019 (banned) join:2004-02-05 New York, NY |
to elray
I don't want to pay for schools or the military but I have to anyway.
They'll have to suck it up because they don't know what's good for them. FTTH is a vital piece of infrastructure for the modern world. | |
| | | Cobra11M join:2010-12-23 Mineral Wells, TX |
Re: What if?very true, I wish their was some here 10mbps seems so slow compared to some other peoples on here | |
| | | elray join:2000-12-16 Santa Monica, CA |
to 45612019
said by 45612019:I don't want to pay for schools or the military but I have to anyway.
They'll have to suck it up because they don't know what's good for them. FTTH is a vital piece of infrastructure for the modern world. "Free" compulsory education is required by the courts, the military is mandated by the Constitution. FTTH, I'm afraid, isn't on the list, and it isn't a "Vital piece of infrastructure for the modern world." Oh sure, its nice to have. And I'm among the minority that are willing to pay the necessary premium for it - i.e. $5K install and $100+/month, but the majority isn't anywhere near as willing, and they certainly aren't going to be told to subsidize you. The market *will* eventually grind these costs down substantially, where passes get below $1K and monthlies can get below $50, but rural folks aren't willing to pay even that. As for being told to "suck it up", I don't think that's going to go over very well. Better to use the Jack Tramiel angle, and make the folks feel guilty that somehow, some way, little Johnny won't graduate preschool if he can't stream Netflix. | |
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Gig U to RDU
Anon
2012-May-24 3:57 pm
Bring Gigabit to Durham, Raleigh, Chapel HillThe Durham, Raleigh, Chapel Hill area of NC has the most dense population of Gig.U members within a given radius, plenty of fiber backhaul with Reserch Triangle Park, and no competition with current inernet providers; Time Warner and At&T. They should pick this are since Gig.U members would actually benefit from better internet service. | |
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quetwoThat VoIP Guy Premium Member join:2004-09-04 East Lansing, MI |
quetwo
Premium Member
2012-May-24 4:41 pm
GigU has been all talk so far...At MSU, there has been all sorts of talk that "GigU" and the Gigabit Ethernet services are coming, in the works, etc. but nothing other than talk has happened. They shouldn't have Michigan State University on the list -- unless you are talking about political press-releases. | |
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U$F FUND$This is supposed to happen through the use of USF funds.. however, what we apparently see is a small library in the middle of nowhere getting a $12k cisco router powerful enough to serve a small college (complete with cabinet, racks and cooling gear) that fit a medium sized closet. total installation cost $500k.. did I mention that it's served with an internet pipe equal to the highest tier that a residential account can get in the neighborhood... insane..
$500k could have brought last mile broadband to 100 or more homes in a suburb or 20-50 homes in a rural zone-- where AT&T, Comcast and Verizon REFUSE TO BUILD, but will not let others try...
Do we really need the 'MOVE IT!!' OR LOSE IT LAW (MONOPOLY FRANCHISE RIGHTS FOR INTERNET ACCESS) ??
If these companies don't upgrade a specified geography say, within 7 more years (suburban), 12 years (rural) to a minimum broadband.. say 100/100 megabits, they lose exclusive franchise monopoly rights and no law can override or restrict a community's access to get outside competitors.
It's not surprising that broadband would be more popular around universities since most colleges will have a cluster of fiber/coax supporting peak usage of hundreds of megabits (minimum) +
Stony Brook University (SUNY) used to have multiple T3 telco lines back in 94 and OC192s in 96/97-- can't imagine it being less than 100GIG fiber by now.. | |
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Gig U to RDU
Anon
2012-May-24 9:20 pm
Re: U$F FUND$I posted eariler from work but even at a University as large as UNC Chapel Hill, we only have dual 10gig uplinks in diverse path and that is not even maxed out according to our director of networking. Even Universities might not have the total thoughput you would think. Anything larger then 10gig uplinks is expensive. BYW - Duke, UNC, and NC State are all Gig.U members and they are less than 20 miles distance between the three. | |
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Re: U$F FUND$Two major factors in NY's advantage.. MAJOR backbones of the internet run into the heart of NY state and fiber optics by the major telcos from NY tel, to bell atlantic to Verizon and the cable companies run fiber throughout the NY metro area.. This geography BLEED excess fiber optics, thus making a research university like Stony Brook high up on the list to get the tech toys.. even if they dont' fully utilize them. Maybe (residential campus computing) isn't 100gig (multiple 10's? since avg speed is 40mbits per user, not including wifi connections).. and the network is probably partitioned so that the Internet-2 connections are separate from the main network.. Where Stony Brook left off using these I2 pipes with Computer Science.. they pick up using it for the telemedicine and other applications.. they just don't heavily advertise that they have them because they are special purpose connections. They constantly do upgrades to the fiber optic signalling equipment to break new throughput records per strand and that story isn't told as much anymore. The average residential consumer won't probably see internet-2 speeds in their lifetime unless working under these conditions because the telecom industry are greedy, and conservative in their aproach to broadband deployment-- even Verizon and Google. | |
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to tmc8080
This plan is not new - far from it. Have we forgotten about the much earlier (pre-FIOS, in fact) Blacksburg Electronic Village (BEV), a JV between the Commonwealth of Virginia, Virginia Tech, and the City of Blacksburg? (» www.bev.org) | |
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25139889 (banned) join:2011-10-25 Toledo, OH |
25139889 (banned)
Member
2012-May-25 1:40 pm
Case Western Reserve Universityhas been behind this project for YEARS. They've actually was the first to offer 1gbps Internet to the community- even before the Muni's even thought about building their network.
Thanks to OneCommunity and CWRU this actually happens. | |
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