[1st-mile-nm] Albuquerque City Council Approves Fiber Franchise

[Richard Lowenberg]

Council OKs High-Speed Internet Deal

http://www.abqjournal.com/cgi-bin/print_it.pl?page=/news/metro/304818metro05-06-08.htm

Tuesday, May 6, 2008
By Sean Olson
Journal Staff Writer

    The City Council approved an agreement Monday that will give all city
buildings and schools free, ultrahigh-speed Internet access.
    In return, local company Citylink Fiber Holdings of Albuquerque has free
rein to build a fiber network through all public rights of way.
    Councilors voted unanimously to approve the franchise agreement. Isaac
Benton and Debbie O'Malley were not present.
    The city would also get 2.5 percent of the company's profits from the
network. The mayor would have to approve the council's action.
    The body further encouraged Citylink President John Brown to build out the
network as soon as possible.
    "I'd love to see this happen tomorrow," Councilor Rey Garduño said.
    Without a franchise agreement, the company would have to apply for a license
and build only where plans for the network had been approved.
    Any change in plans or network expansion would need to be brought back
before the city before it could be built, Brown said.
    The agreement is not exclusive and the city could grant additional companies
access to rights of way for the same purpose.
    For everyone else, the agreement means the eventual availability of
purchasing an Internet connection at speeds that cannot be matched by cable or
DSL.
    Currently, the fiber optic network encompasses parts of the Downtown area,
including City Hall, Brown said Monday.
    As the network grows, the company will hook up city buildings and schools
without any costs to the city.
    Brown claims the Internet speeds will dwarf what is currently available in
Albuquerque.
    "It will make DSL and cable look like old school dial-up," Brown said.
    He estimates the speeds to be more than 10 times faster than cable
connections for downloads and 100 times faster for uploads.
    That's because the network uses "dark fiber," which uses light instead of
copper wire to carry its signal, he said.
    The network includes 150 homes and 50 buildings thus far, Brown said.
    Additions to the network will be financed by private investors and revenue
from the network, he said.
    While there is no set plan for where and when the network will expand, the
next phase will take the network down Broadway to connect to new development
Mesa del Sol.
    Some Northeast Heights neighborhoods could be added in as soon as 18 months,
Brown said.
    When the network is expanded, any city buildings and local schools?
including higher education buildings? will be connected.
    The company will make its money by selling access to the network to local
Internet service providers, businesses and directly to homes, he said.
    "We want to make it available to anybody," Brown said.



-- 
Richard Lowenberg
1st-Mile Institute
P.O. Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504
505-989-9110;   505-603-5200 cell
rl at 1st-mile.com  www.1st-mile.com

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