Fiber

MDU Broadband Deployment Can be Expedited Through Existing Infrastructure

G.hn technology can utilize existing telephone wiring and coaxial cabling to deliver fiber-like speeds.

Published

9 months ago

December 21, 2022

WASHINGTON, December 21, 2021 — Utilizing existing infrastructure can significantly lower the costs of fiber deployment to multi-dwelling units and help improve connectivity in unserved and underserved areas, according to panelists at a Broadband Breakfast Live Online event Dec. 14.

Although fiber deployment has become increasingly straightforward, MDUs such as apartment buildings and hotels still present major obstacles in the process, said Pierre Trudeau, president of Positron Access Solutions.

“It’s expensive, it takes time, it requires resources for fiber splicing… To some extent, it actually increases the digital divide, where now you have tenants with low-speed DSL or DOCSIS that are eager to sign up for much better service but simply cannot,” Trudeau said.

A technology standard known as G.hn has emerged as a solution to these concerns. Positron developed a G.hn Access Multiplexer that utilizes existing telephone wiring and coaxial cabling to increase capacity on older technology to deliver fiber-like speeds to MDUs in a cost-effective manner.

“The goal is gigabit, the goal is symmetrical and the goal is highly reliable,” said Robert Grosz, president of World Cinema, a data and connectivity services company that uses the technology in hotels. “And that’s what we’re seeing out of this technology.”

Screenshot of panelists from the Broadband Breakfast event

GAM installation is relatively simple, bypassing the prohibitively expensive and disruptive aspects of more traditional fiber buildout.

“We’ve built out a whole building in a week or less, so it’s a matter of days,” said Kevin Fisher, CEO of Sail Internet.

Deploying fiber to MDUs is often a digital equity issue. Many buildings with older wiring that hinders fiber deployment are concentrated in affordable housing communities, Grosz noted.

“We’ve gotten a number of calls from desperate children saying, ‘My mom’s community doesn’t have working internet, and she can’t Zoom with the grandkids because she doesn’t have a real internet connection,’” Grosz said.

The COVID-19 pandemic illuminated the importance of connectivity in employment, education, healthcare and communication, said Nicol Turner Lee, director of the Center for Technology Innovation. But even now, millions of Americans either lack home internet altogether or lack access to high-speed internet that can support high bandwidth uses such as video calling.

Property managers should view fiber as a benefit, not a burden

One of the unique challenges with MDU deployment is that it requires the involvement of the building owner in addition to the resident and the service provider.

Property owners may not want to disrupt their long-standing relationship with a cable operator, Fisher said. “They want choice, but they also don’t want to create problems, whether it’s contractual or concerns about the service quality for the tenants who want to continue using the coaxial cable.”

Sail Internet avoids this issue by utilizing twisted pair cables rather than coaxial cables, Fisher said.

Still, a lack of understanding is still a barrier to deployment, and more public education and awareness is needed in order for communities to fully take advantage of these solutions, Trudeau added.

Grosz agreed, saying that awareness was the “most powerful thing” that he could promote. Framing digital infrastructure as an asset, analogous to plumbing or any other part of a building, is the best way to convince property owners to invest in connectivity for their residents, he said.

Property managers sometimes view upgraded connectivity as a risk because of concerns over cost, failing to realize how essential broadband has become for many potential occupants, Lee said.

Our Broadband Breakfast Live Online events take place on Wednesday at 12 Noon ET. Watch the event on Broadband Breakfast, or REGISTER HERE to join the conversation.

Wednesday, December 14, 2022, 12 Noon ET – In the Trenches: Better Broadband for Multi-Dwelling Units

Multi-dwelling units often pose challenges for carriers looking to expedite broadband deployment through fiber installation in underserved areas. Innovative access solutions that utilize existing infrastructure and future-proof technology can be a significant component in improving service without being prohibitively expensive and disruptive. This Live Online session will explore a model for successful MDU deployment through a start-to-finish case study.

Panelists:

Kevin Fisher, CEO, Sail Internet
Robert Grosz, President, World Cinema
Nicol Turner Lee, Director, Center for Technology Innovation
Pierre Trudeau, President & CTO, Positron Access Solutions
Drew Clark (moderator), Editor and Publisher, Broadband Breakfast

Panelist resources:

Pierre Trudeau: Life in the Trenches, or Lessons Learned Deploying Broadband in MDUs, Broadband Breakfast, December 7, 2022

Kevin Fisher has spent his career revolutionizing the high speed internet access experience for consumers and businesses. He has received more than 20 U.S. patents and his team developed the core technology behind the award-winning line of 2Wire HomePortal routers deployed by AT&T/U-verse and other major phone companies. Kevin has a passion for making new technology accessible, easy-to-use, and affordable on a mass scale.

Robert Grosz is a leader in the institutional real estate and technology industries with a 25-year track record of success. He is committed to helping institutional real estate owners and managers create value from investments in technology by enhancing the customer experience and forming long-lasting partnerships with best of breed technology solutions. Prior to World Cinema, he worked at Boingo Wireless and DISH Network.

Nicol Turner Lee is a senior fellow in Governance Studies, the director of the Center for Technology Innovation, and serves as Co-Editor-In-Chief of TechTank. Dr. Turner Lee’s portfolio includes research on public policies designed to enable equitable access to technology across the U.S. and to harness its power to create change in communities across the world. She has a forthcoming book on the U.S. digital divide titled Digitally Invisible: How the Internet is Creating the New Underclass (forthcoming 2022, Brookings Press).

Pierre Trudeau is the president and CTO of Positron Access Solutions and a seasoned Networking and Technology Executive with over 30 years of experience. Pierre founded Colubris Networks, a leader in advanced Wi-Fi solutions for Wireless ISP, Carriers and Enterprises in March 2000. He provided business and technology services to several companies until January 2013 when he joined Positron Access as its Chief Strategy Officer.

Drew Clark (moderator) is CEO of Breakfast Media LLC. He has led the Broadband Breakfast community since 2008. An early proponent of better broadband, better lives, he initially founded the Broadband Census crowdsourcing campaign for broadband data. As Editor and Publisher, Clark presides over the leading media company advocating for higher-capacity internet everywhere through topical, timely and intelligent coverage. Clark also served as head of the Partnership for a Connected Illinois, a state broadband initiative.

WATCH HERE, or on YouTube, Twitter and Facebook.

As with all Broadband Breakfast Live Online events, the FREE webcasts will take place at 12 Noon ET on Wednesday.

SUBSCRIBE to the Broadband Breakfast YouTube channel. That way, you will be notified when events go live. Watch on YouTube, Twitter and Facebook.

See a complete list of upcoming and past Broadband Breakfast Live Online events.

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Em McPhie

Reporter Em McPhie studied communication design and writing at Washington University in St. Louis, where she was a managing editor for the student newspaper. In addition to agency and freelance marketing experience, she has reported extensively on Section 230, big tech, and rural broadband access. She is a founding board member of Code Open Sesame, an organization that teaches computer programming skills to underprivileged children.

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Fiber

STL Opens South Carolina Fiber Cable Plant

The $100 million plant was announced in June 2023 as part of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to America.

Published

2 weeks ago

September 15, 2023

Jake Neenan

Photo of the Lugoff, South Carolina plant

WASHINGTON, September 15, 2023 – STL on Friday opened a new fiber-optic cable manufacturing plant in Lugoff, South Carolina.

The India-based company, which is officially Sterlite Technologies Limited, announced a $100 million investment in the plant after Narendra Modi, the country’s prime minister, visited with President Joe Biden in June of this year.

According to the company, the plant will facilitate $150 million annually in optical fiber exports from India.

The company is one of several to announce investments in American fiber-optic cable manufacturing, with major manufacturer Corning announcing a new North Carolina plant in June and Prysmian converting a Tennessee plant from copper to cable production.

Nokia also announced in August a Wisconsin plant that will manufacture electronic components necessary for deploying fiber networks.

The investments can be attributed in part to a provision of the Infrastructure, Investment and Jobs Act: The Build America, Buy America rule, which places two requirements on federally funded projects. It requires that 55 percent of the component cost must be spent with American suppliers, and materials must be manufactured in the United States.

Ahead of the disbursement of funds under the $42.5 billion Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment program, broadband providers will be looking to source infrastructure equipment from vendors that comply with the rule.

The National Telecommunications and Information Administration is proposing a partial waiver to the BABA rule for BEAD-funded projects. The waiver would do away with the 55 percent component cost rule, as the semiconductors and integrated circuits that make up much of the cost of fiber equipment are manufactured in Southeast Asia.

The comment period for the proposed waiver is open until September 21.

Open Access

Gigapower Exec Pitches Value of Open Access Networks to Maximize BEAD Money Efficiency

The open access model allows multiple ISPs to use the same infrastructure. That could benefit Gigapower.

Published

2 weeks ago

September 13, 2023

Jake Neenan

Screenshot of Bill Hogg, CEO of Gigapower, during Broadband Breakfast Live Online

WASHINGTON, September 13, 2023 – Gigapower is in talks with state broadband offices about potentially building out open access infrastructure with grants from the Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment Program, the company’s CEO said Wednesday.

“I think that when the time comes for BEAD, this platform will be a perfect fit,” Bill Hogg, the company’s CEO, said at a Broadband Breakfast Live Online event.

That’s because consumers could still choose from multiple internet providers offering different services at different price points, all on BEAD-funded Gigapower infrastructure, Hogg pitched. The traditional ISP-owned infrastructure model would only bring service from the provider that won a state contract to expand their network, he claimed.

“They like the idea that multiple ISPs will be able to bring choice to their constituents,” he said of state broadband officials. “They don’t have to pick a winner or a loser.”

Gigapower, a joint venture between AT&T and the investment firm BlackRock, is already slated to build a 1.5-million-location open access network. That means it will own and operate a fiber network while allowing multiple internet service providers to use that network to connect individual homes and businesses.

Spawned from the Infrastructure, Investment, and Jobs Act, the BEAD program allocates $42.5 billion to subsidize broadband infrastructure – primarily fiber – in areas that still lack adequate internet service because of geographical barriers or low population density. After submitting initial proposals by the end of the year, states will be able to start doling out this money to fund projects.

Gigapower is actively looking to add more service providers to its lineup, Hogg said.

“We fully intend to have other ISPs on the network,” he said. “We’re having good discussions with potential future tenants.”

Benefits of open access

AT&T will be the first tenant on the open access network, part of its deal with Blackrock. The telecom is looking to reach more people as quickly as possible, said Erin Scarborough, its president of broadband and connectivity, but building out fiber is costly and expensive. Making use of a network outside the company’s existing infrastructure will make it easier to expand into new areas and was a key motivator for investing in the project.

“That’s one of the key tenets of this agreement and why we were looking to do it,” Scarborough said.

The open access model is a departure from the norm in American telecommunications. There are regional open access networks like Utah’s UTOPIA Fiber, but large ISPs have traditionally opted for the security of owning and operating their own networks.

“When you start thinking about operating more efficiently with less capital, sharing networks has always made sense,” Hogg said. “We think that this model is going to break down the historical bias telecos have had about not controlling all the assets.”

Despite the company’s investment in the project and first-provider status, Scarborough and Hogg were emphatic that AT&T will not have a management role over the network.

“We are the network operator,” Hogg said of Gigapower. “We own the assets. We own the negotiation for the commercial terms.”

Our Broadband Breakfast Live Online events take place on Wednesday at 12 Noon ET. Watch the event on Broadband Breakfast, or REGISTER HERE to join the conversation.

Wednesday, September 13, 2023 – AT&T and BlackRock’s Gigapower Joint Venture

In December 2022, AT&T and BlackRock, through a fund managed by its Diversified Infrastructure business, jointly invested in the Gigapower joint venture that is expected to build fiber connectivity to an initial 1.5 million customer locations beyond AT&T’s current footprint. Notably, AT&T will rely on a commercial wholesale open access platform, where multiple providers share space and compete for customers over the same fiber infrastructure. Could Gigapower alter the historical reluctance of U.S. telcos toward such networks? How will the deployment impact open access projects throughout the United States? Get the facts from this special Broadband Breakfast Live Online event.

Panelists:

Bill Hogg, CEO of Gigapower
Erin Scarborough, President, Broadband and Connectivity Initiatives at AT&T
Adam Waltz, Managing Director at BlackRock Infrastructure
Roger Entner, Founder and Lead Analyst of Recon Analytics
Drew Clark (moderator), Editor and Publisher, Broadband Breakfast

Adam Waltz is a Managing Director in BlackRock’s Global Infrastructure Fund focused on investments in digital infrastructure opportunities across fiber networks, data centers, and wireless infrastructure. He serves as a Board Director at Gigapower, BlackRock’s joint venture with AT&T to develop a commercial wholesale open access platform on a state-of-the-art fiber network.

Bill Hogg leads Gigapower, an open access, wholesale fiber broadband company that builds and operates fiber solutions lit for fast connectivity and designed for network resiliency and reliability. Bill retired as President, AT&T Technology Operations, and was responsible for all planning, investment, engineering, construction, delivery, and assurance of AT&T’s wireless and wireline networks. Previously, Bill served as President-Technology Development, responsible for the development of AT&T’s products and services, digital experiences for customers, and systems supporting the operations across AT&T’s networks and services.

Erin Scarborough leads the team responsible for AT&T’s efforts to connect more Americans to greater possibility through fiber and wireless 5G investment initiatives, participating in government funding programs and public private partnerships. She and her team are taking a strategic, state-by-state approach working closely with state and local governments as they assess their broadband access, affordability and adoption needs. She also leads the combined broadband and mobility product management teams and has cross-functional responsibility for product profitability, pricing, customer experience, product design, multi-year roadmaps, development, and value-add services across the product portfolios.

Roger Entner advises telecom, media and technology companies on strategic and tactical business as well as public policy issues to allow them to compete better in the marketplace. Some of the challenges he helped to address are mobile market trends and business drivers and how to position themselves for growth and profitability, TMT convergence, bundling, changes in media consumption, software-defined networking, transition from MVNO to MNO, as well as providing the evidence and arguments for light touch wireless regulation and spectrum allocation for 5G. Under Roger’s leadership, Recon Analytics has launched the fastest and most agile telecom insights service based on more than 400,000 respondents across consumer mobile, home internet and business telecom customers.

Breakfast Media LLC CEO Drew Clark has led the Broadband Breakfast community since 2008. An early proponent of better broadband, better lives, he initially founded the Broadband Census crowdsourcing campaign for broadband data. As Editor and Publisher, Clark presides over the leading media company advocating for higher-capacity internet everywhere through topical, timely and intelligent coverage. Clark also served as head of the Partnership for a Connected Illinois, a state broadband initiative.

WATCH HERE, or on YouTube, Twitter and Facebook.

As with all Broadband Breakfast Live Online events, the FREE webcasts will take place at 12 Noon ET on Wednesday.

SUBSCRIBE to the Broadband Breakfast YouTube channel. That way, you will be notified when events go live. Watch on YouTube, Twitter and Facebook.

See a complete list of upcoming and past Broadband Breakfast Live Online events.