Expanding Your Broadband Network: Considerations

If you think your current broadband network is sufficient to meet customer demands, think again. New residential and business services are becoming available nearly daily, and they all demand higher and higher levels of bandwidth. By 2012 household bandwidth demand alone will reach 23 Mbps downstream and 14 Mbps upstream according to the Bandwidth Stakeholder Group. And small-to-medium- sized businesses expect that broadband will deliver the bandwidth they need to make their businesses more operationally efficient and to improve customer satisfaction.

There are also a number of government initiatives that will require broadband bandwidth, and these initiatives provide compelling business opportunities for network operators. A key initiative of the new administration is telehealth. Telehealth includes a variety of high-bandwidth applications such as videoconferencing, store and forward imaging, streaming media and terrestrial and wireless communications — all of which require broadband communications as the underlying foundation. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) has allocated $19 billion to this telehealth, part of which will be used to create the broadband networks needed to implement the initiative.

An expanded and upgraded broadband network can also provide the foundation for educational networks, including K-12, college and universities, research networks that connect universities, labs and other research institutions, distance learning and Internet II access.

According to Thomas Dorr, Under Secretary, USDA, "Broadband is a transformative technology. It allows rural communities to dramatically enhance the quality of health care and education. It gives every rural business access to regional, national, and international markets. It reduces barriers of time and distance, levels the playing field, and makes rural communities better places to live, work, and raise a family."

Banking, commerce, entertainment, education and healthcare companies all see the Internet as a key way to reach customers, reduce operational expenses and grow the bottom line. These companies need access to a network operator's customers for continued success and those customers need access to their services to survive.

Expanding a broadband network can be done today, and the availability of funding from ARRA 2009 makes it easier, faster and much more affordable. First, a network operator needs to build a scalable office-to-office core broadband network that can meet the bandwidth needs of today and of the future. From the core, the existing remote terminal infrastructure of most operators can be leveraged to push as much bandwidth as possible to the customer edge to deliver the advanced services today's residential and business customers demand.

To accomplish a network expansion, a network operator will need to use all the tools available to him. Today those include:

• Ethernet and IP
• IP-based softswitch technology
• Copper-based technologies: ADSL2Plus, Bonded ADSL2Plus, VDSL2, and Bonded G.SHDSL
• Fiber-based technologies: GPON and Active Ethernet
• Wireless technologies: WiMAX and WiFi

When a network operator decides to initiate a broadband network expansion project, there are other considerations that should be kept in mind. These include:

• As the population of an area increases so does the demand for bandwidth. Build that bandwidth into the network up front to reduce additional capital expenses later.
• The economies of Ethernet in the network can overcome the initial increased cost of moving from ATM/SONET/SDH protocols. Ethernet delivers the lowest cost per Mbps of bandwidth of any technology, does not require oversubscription of bandwidth, and lowers ongoing OpEx expenses.
• Build in robust network monitoring and control capabilities to ensure that network traffic can be easily tracked.
• Today’s softswitch technology offers exceptional cost-savings and efficiencies. Take advantage of it.

Today’s independent network operators are uniquely qualified to expand broadband services to rural and underserved areas across the nation. These network operators touch all the customers in their customer service area, have fiber deployed deeply in their networks, have dedicated connections and have highly skilled workforces capable of deploying an expanded broadband network.

Broadband offers independent carriers a lifeline for survival in today’s competitive landscape. And the availability of the broadband initiative funds makes expanding the broadband network a requirement for their continued success.

Footnotes:
Excerpted from September 2008 ONUG presentation by Michael Brown, vice president of broadband and access engineering, FairPoint Communications.