New Northern Lights

Soon, the Aurora Borealis won't be the only intense light that our neighbor to the north will have within its sight. Canada's Prime Minister Jean Chretien and the Canadian federal government have appointed a broadband task force to recommend how Canada should build a national fiber optic network that ultimately will connect to every public building, private business and residence nationwide.

According to Bill St. Arnaud, senior director of advanced networks for Canada's Advanced Internet Development Organization, or CANARIE, the plan will call for the government to pay for the buildout of “condominium” fiber to every public sector building—schools, libraries and government offices—in the country. Extra fiber in the conduit will be sold to competitors that will use it to bring fiber-based access to nearby private sector businesses and residences.

The plan saves everybody money because it eliminates the need for service providers to overbuild and maintain their own fiber networks, and passes those costs on to end users. It also speeds the time it will take for fiber to reach homes and businesses throughout the country, St. Arnaud explained. Digging up neighborhood streets won't be a problem because most fiber will be deployed aerially, with about 15% buried.

While the Canadian feds get organized, provincial and local governments are moving ahead with their own plans. Alberta recently announced an approximately $300 million CA partnership with Bell Canada to deploy a provincewide fiber network during the next two years, St. Arnaud said. The province will purchase fiber indefeasible rights of use from Bell Canada and resell fiber to competitors that will provide fiber access to residences and private businesses.

In the towns of Morrisburg (population 5000) and Iriquois Falls (population 7000), Ontario, fiber is being deployed to every business and home.

“There's a lot of activity and more to be announced,” St. Arnaud said.

The Canadians have selected gigabit Ethernet rather than ATM passive optical network (APON) as the “technology of choice,” St. Arnaud said. “APON is history. It's too slow, too costly and the management is too complex. It's a classic Bell-head technical approach. Gig-E is much cheaper and more mature than APON.”

Initially, it will cost each homeowner and small business about $700 to connect to gigabit Ethernet networks, but as production of ASICs increases, the price of a home gateway will dip to less than $50 per home in three years, he added.

Technology aside, St. Arnaud credited political leadership as the critical element in Canada's fiberization plan and pointed to Chicago's Mayor Richard M. Daley as the man with a plan in the U.S.

Daley and his Council of Technology Advisors aim to make broadband access available to every address within the city limits. The public/private initiative, dubbed CivicNet, is part of the mayor's comprehensive vision to use technology to enhance economic development, job growth and improve the quality of life for Chicago's citizens.

CivicNet calls for the city, which spends about $25 million a year for leased voice and data lines, to become the anchor tenant of a citywide fiber optic network. That network will ultimately branch out to provide private business and city residents with broadband access to city services and programs and each other.

Chicago expects to issue a request for proposal for CivicNet this spring, said Joe Mambretti, chair of the Council of Technology Advisors' IT infrastructure committee. Initial implementation will begin by year-end 2001 or the beginning of 2002, he added.

Briefly

Moving rapidly ahead

Rapid5 Networks this week will introduce a new convergence platform that enables carriers to have Internet offload capabilities, multiservice gateway capabilities and broadband access capabilities without the need for a forklift upgrade. BellSouth, Qwest, SBC and Verizon currently are evaluating the new platform.