621694
story
Comments: 253 +- Technology: Name For a Community-Owned Fiber Network? on Saturday April 12 2008, @09:06PM
Posted
by
kdawson
on Saturday April 12 2008, @09:06PM
from the community-owned-first-mile-fiber-network dept.
from the community-owned-first-mile-fiber-network dept.
background: url(//a.fsdn.com/sd/topics/topicnetworking.gif); width:71px; height:37px;
networking
CleverMonkey writes "I'm a town representative to a newly created municipal group creating a new type of telco. This group has formed to build and operate a FTTH network, and provide both triple-play services and access to other providers, to over 20 mostly rural towns in East-Central Vermont. The project is novel because of the size of the network (a cable pass down every road within 600 square miles), the low-density of the area served, and the public-ownership/private-financing model that is being used. Some of the towns included in this group currently have nothing beyond 14.4 dial-up on a good day. This project began as a grassroots effort in a couple of towns and the name they chose was ECFiber — East-Central Fiber — or sometimes the East-Central Vermont Community Network. We hope that this network will grow beyond one corner of this state, and we would like a name that is both descriptive and flexible. What would you name a community-owned, cutting-edge, G-PON fiber-optic network covering every remote corner of two-dozen contiguous towns?"
Related Stories
Some people have a way about them that seems to say: "If I have
only one life to live, let me live it as a jerk."
All trademarks and copyrights on this page are owned by their respective owners. Comments are owned by the Poster. The Rest © 1997-2009 Geeknet, Inc.
Grassroute! (Score:5, Interesting)
Obligatory (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Gigabit
Passive
Rural
Optical
Network
G-PRON! Or G-PORN if you will, but that is just crass.
Easy. (Score:5, Funny)
Heaven.
Re: (Score:2)
Obligatory (Score:3, Informative)
http://albertasupernet.ca/ [albertasupernet.ca]
In Sweden (Score:4, Interesting)
http://www.stadsnat.se/ [stadsnat.se]
Simply "Urban network".
The prices are right atleast, I think you can get 10 mbps for 99 sek = 10.5 euro / 16.65 us dollar.
Parent
Re:In Sweden (Score:5, Funny)
Need a roomate?
Parent
Re:In Sweden (Score:4, Informative)
100 mbps down / 10 mbps up for 320 sek / month.
Was 10/10 since feb 2000 or was that 2002? for 200 sek. But then they raised it to 320 sek and offered 100/100 as an alternative for 895 sek or whatever it was with a cap at 300 GB or something and additional payments for each additional 100 GB. Now they don't offer 100/100 longer but 100 down and 10 up for everyone instead.
But personally I think 320 sek are quite expensive, especially since I don't download much stuff and IRC are dead nowadays which was why I needed it anyway.
But then again with cable you only get 256 kbps for 99 sek, so that suck. I hate the guy/team/company/university/whatever which invented xDSL, and especially ADSL. Crappy Internet onnections to everyone!! Hurray!
They should have got fiber to everyone, kill the old copper telephone network, not built any new air broadcasting antennas for digital TV and just run it all over fiber to everyone. DVB looks like shit to begin with, sure it's "sharp", but there are artifacts all over the place.
And now someone will complain that the Internet aren't good for broadcasting, well, then fix that!
Fiber to everyone in Sweden was affordable at around 50 billion sek, stupid politicans which didn't took the plunge.
I have no idea where you live, maybe you could have had fiber in all homes in the USA instead of war in Iraq?
Parent
How about... (Score:2)
Bob (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Granted, it might be the only former MicroSoft product whose name you could use without getting sued...
Re: (Score:2)
Gothic Reference (Score:2)
Now seriously, why not call it "Our Net (tm)" ?
Our Net might sound damn good... and give the people paying for it a measure or at least a feeling of some sort of stake in this thing.
Re: (Score:2)
Isn't it obvious? (Score:5, Funny)
I would say CompuGlobalHyperMegaNet [compuglobalhypermega.net], but it's already taken.
How about CutCo, EdgeCom or Interslice?
I've got a good title (Score:5, Funny)
Vermont's Eastern/Rural Independently Zoned Open Network
I'm sure the name has never been used.
Re: (Score:2)
I'd call it.. (Score:2, Interesting)
It envelopes everything and everyone. The Fiber Optic Gateway.
Good luck! (Score:2)
As for a name I dunno. Why not something simple and Vermonty like "Red Clover Rural?"
Wireless (mobile) networking? (Score:5, Interesting)
And when setting up a community network, I'm also quite sure there are reasonably fast and much cheaper wireless solutions. Not necessarily WiFi (but with strategially placed directional antennas that should do quite well too), but maybe even packet radio like solutions?
Why laying cables in this wireless age in the first place? Cables are expensive to roll out and very hard to upgrade, especially when you are talking about low-density rural areas.
Or what about wireless connections for the backbone, and only wire the last bits to the homes, assuming clusters of homes that you want to connect?
Re:Wireless (mobile) networking? (Score:4, Informative)
Fibre isn't affected by rf interference, sunspots, etc.
Fibre supports much higher speeds, w/o the problems of one person hogging all the bandwidth on an available channel.
It's now really easy to lay even in built-up areas [liteaccess.com]
It's CHEAP!!! [controlcable.com] 12 strands @ $1.30 /foot works out to 11 cents a foot/strand. Even if you only service 12 people with 1000' of the stuff, that works out to $130/person.
Parent
Re: (Score:3)
They're not digging, they're putting the fiber on existing poles.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
CommUNITY Network (Score:5, Interesting)
How about COFFEE (Score:2, Interesting)
Fiberoads (Score:3, Funny)
To the place I belong
East-Central Vermont, mountain momma
Take me home, Fiberoads
rethink public ownership (Score:5, Insightful)
Instead I suggest the cooperative model that has worked for rural electric providers for over fifty years. A cooperative is a corporation that is owned by its customers. Using a cooperative organization will keep the government out, which I think will be essential to your organization's survival.
Good luck!
This is Vermont (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
Re:This is Vermont (Score:4, Informative)
The GP is saying that the telcos, through lobbying and lawsuits and other means, are entirely likely to do all they can to CRUSH this effort. They have a history of similar actions. A suggestion was made that being a cooperative might help provide some protection in the legal sense. It wasn't some sort of backhanded way of saying that the communities involved weren't capable of cooperating on their own.
Parent
Re:This is Vermont (Score:4, Informative)
You can read the case study [newrules.org], or just go find out more [burlingtontelecom.net].
Parent
Suggestions (Score:2)
[The] Technate
ECV Technate
Lightway
[The] Freeway
Digisect
Cybertech
Tri-county square route (or whatever instead of tri-)
IV (Internet Vermont, IV as in intravenous therepy)
Cybotiks Inc.
Fiber-Comm
Community Nexus
Nexus Comm
Fiberopia
SysComm
fNet
LoComm (local community/communications)
uNet (unit, your 'net, etc.)
Too Good... (Score:5, Funny)
You don't really think that the incumbent telcos are going to let you survive to complete this, do you?
Coffin! (Score:2)
Community Owned Fiber Network, or COFN (coffin) for short.
It fits because it'll be the death of you!
YMMV - I was not a marketing major.
First pick the acronym (Score:4, Funny)
Why not keep it simple (Score:2)
Community Wide Area Network. You might go with Community Metropolitan Area Network but that would lend itself to being called c-man... no good.
Then later, outside of the East-Central Vermont CWAN project, you can add the South-Western Vermont CWAN
I'd stop short of calling it VCWAN in case McCain starts getting flashbacks.
Technically Grid or MAN describe what you are trying to make. Metropolitan Area Network is an old term. You could put an F on the front for Fiber, FGrid or FMAN instead of CWAN...
Findi
Pipe Dream (Score:2)
The InterTube
or
IP Freely
or, just
The Special Internet Group Network Architecture Layer (The SIGNAL)
OK OK, those are pretty bad, but I applaud your goals and wish you well in your en devour.
Hrmmm news? (Score:2)
What would we call it? A rose by any other name.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
But we're sm
Re:Hrmmm news? (Score:4, Insightful)
Slashvertisement it may be, but it shows just how far some people in the U.S. have to go to get even semi-high-speed networks where they live despite the countless dollars in subsidies given to the telcos for improving network access across the country. Obviously AT&T, Verizon et al. have done so much with the help of subsidies that financiers are trampling each other like gold miners to get in on the Vermont market.
Parent
Pick a dumb name (Score:4, Funny)
1 - you have a lot of built-in name recognition
2 - you have an extra revenue stream from suing idiots
3 - you will force said idiots to stop using at least one dumb slang term, the whole world benefits!
Conduit (Score:2)
H_O_P_E_D (Score:3, Funny)
OOBS Fiber (Score:2)
Metamunicipal (Score:5, Funny)
--
Toro
Re:I'd call it... (Score:5, Insightful)
Lowell, Michigan also tried and gave up in 2007 [wzzm13.com] when it realized that the cost of upgrading the system to modern standards would far exceed the value.
Running a telecom service in an underserved area is more expensive and complex than many people think. Often, the area is underserved for a reason.
That said, maybe fiber will work. Or maybe it's worth it as a social value to the community, even if it's pricey. Fingers crossed for you.
Parent