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NaTel is Bringing Fiber Optics Services to Fairfield
BY ELSEBETH WEDERVANG MATHIESEN AND MIKAEL
ENGLUND
February 1997
Picture yourself and your newborn baby in the sitting room, warm and cozy by the fireplace. You haven't introduced her to your mother-in-law yet, and now seems like a good time for her to meet grandma. Pointing at a large painting across the room you say, "Call Olga, please." The telephone/television/ computer "terminal" recognizes your voice and dials her up. There you are. She can see you and you can see her--even though she's on another continent. This kind of interaction has become commonplace now not only at home, but at work and school, making communications more effective and convenient and life easier for everyone. The far distant future? Maybe not.
NaTel, L.C., a new Fairfield-based company, has begun installing fiber-optic cables here that will help bring the future a little closer. "Ultimately, we want to place fiber to every building in Fairfield," says Jim Morrow, one of NaTel's founding four. "Our initial offering will be considerably more modest, however," adds Steve Garner, managing member of the company, which was founded on October 16, 1996.
Driven by their own and their clients' needs for greater bandwidth telecommunications, the group is poised to bring fiber-optic-based services the "last mile" into Fairfield from the new Iowa Network Services (INS) point of presence (POP) on the southern boundary of town. With the first leg of its network planned to become operational early this year, coinciding with the INS POP being "lit," NaTel will soon begin serving Fairfield businesses.
Within the first two years of operation, the company plans to extend the network around Fairfield to become a 15-mile self-healing "ring" of fiber. The fiber-optic ring will provide many businesses and residences with "on ramps" to the information superhighway. The fiber will deliver high-speed data, Internet access, broadband telephony applications, and both local and global video-conferencing capabilities. On the Internet, data will download the second you press the search button, instead of dripping like molasses onto your computer screen. The time to display a page of text and graphics will be measured in fractions of a second rather than the minutes that users of the World Wide Web have grown accustomed to expect. The "World Wide Wait" will finally become the "World Wide Wonder."
The INS fiber-optic cable terminates on South Main Street near the French Reneker Building and became fully operational at the end of January. But in order for the Fairfield community to gain access to the INS network, another network must bring fiber-optic cable the proverbial "Last Mile" into town. NaTel is this "access network."
Four men with four companies, each
having different backgrounds and experience, came together on last
fall to found NaTel in Fairfield: Jeffrey Hedquist, of Hedquist
Productions; Steve Garner, of Natek; Jim Morrow, of Morrow
Consulting; and Michael Schill, of Iowa Computer.
But for many, the question still remains: What is fiber optics, and what is the fiber-optic superhighway?
Fiber-Optic Basics
At one billion bits per second--in technical jargon, one gigabit per second--13 full-length copies of the novel Moby Dick can be transmitted down the cable in one second. This wonder is made of something as simple as strands or fibers of glass measured in micrometers--about the diameter of a single strand of hair. The glass used in manufacturing the fiber is exceptionally pure and transparent, so much so that if you could look through a piece ten miles thick, it would be like looking through a single window pane.
Coherent laser light can easily travel through more than 100 kilometers of the glass fiber without the need for amplification or regeneration. To transmit information, the laser is simply turned on and off, something like old-fashioned Morse Code, but at unbelievably high speeds. Bundles of fibers from as few as 2 to as many as 144 are covered with steel armor and polyethylene jackets for underground cables--usually installed 30" below the surface. Aerial cables, by contrast, are usually all dielectric; that is, they contain no metal. The cables are usually about 1/2" in diameter and black to resist ultraviolet (UV) sunlight breakdown.
There is seemingly no limit to the amount of information that can go through the fiber-optic cables. Explains Jim Morrow, "The capacity depends on the capability of the opti-electronics used at each end of the fiber and on the 'coding,' the way in which the digital signals are transmitted." Coding can be done through optical switching, or by using multiple wavelengths, or a combination of both.
Businesses Have Been Competitively Disadvantaged
Because business thrives and moves on information, using the NaTel fiber-optic technology will enable companies in Fairfield to lower costs and become more productive by using services that they have been needing, which include video conferencing, high-speed access to Internet providers, less expensive access to long-distance service, and high-speed data transfer. NaTel's strategy is first to provide T-1 service to Fairfield businesses and then to move into other services. T-1 lines are the telecommunication standard for most businesses. "At 1.544 million bits per second, a T-1 line provides reasonably good throughput for voice, data, video conferencing, and a variety of other commercial applications," explains Morrow.
Another service that NaTel will offer to customers along its fiber network is the Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN). According to Michael Schill, ISDN comes in two flavors: Basic Rate Interface (BRI), which functions like a strengthened plain old telephone service (POTS) voice line, but consists of two 64 ,000 bit-per-second digital B-channels, and Primary Rate Interface (PRI), which is like "bulk" ISDN with 23 B-channels. Businesses can use BRI and PRI lines for many purposes, one of which is telecommuting for employees who work in home offices or other remote sites.
With ISDN, NaTel can offer other advantages to businesses in Fairfield. For example, Jeffrey Hedquist, another founder of NaTel and one of the world's leading voice talents, will be able to dial up a studio anywhere in the world and make a real-time recording, saving the time and cost of traveling to ISDN-equipped studios in large metropolitan areas.
His work also involves directing out-of-the-area talent over analog telephone lines, and then waiting for overnight courier services to deliver the tapes to his Fairfield studio the next day for mixing. In addition, Jeffrey and several other Fairfield voice talents record in Hedquist Productions' studios, and the recordings are sent via overnight courier to various studios throughout the country.
With ISDN service, Hedquist Productions' Fairfield voice talent could speak into microphones here and record simultaneously in any ISDN-equipped studio in the world. A video signal could also be sent to Hedquist while he's recording, so he could easily match voice to picture. The real-time capability is the most important function that ISDN would give Hedquist Productions.
A Vision of Possibilities
After the needs of its first-tier customers are met by T-1 lines and ISDN, NaTel's plans include the deployment of a telecommunications network capable of carrying Fairfield into the next millennium. The first part of this network of the future NaTel calls Fast Metropolitan Area Network (FastMAN).
The Fairfield FastMAN will provide not only broadband Internet access through Internet service providers such as LISCO, but also an in-town network connecting hundreds of buildings. FastMAN will enable a Fairfield business to connect its various offices over a broadband fiber-optic network and thereby share voice, data, and video conferencing capabilities.
In NaTel's FastMAN model, video conferencing is an everyday reality. It is a great help for companies to cut travel costs and increase productivity as well as local and global efficiency. "Less time and money expended on travel means more time at work. It significantly reduces the number of early-morning and late-evening hours traveling, packing, and planning," says Jim Morrow. "You'll have more personal time." Video conferencing will enable people in different locations to communicate directly as if sitting in the same room, talking to each other on the screen.
For example, video conferencing will make a big difference for Human Factors International, a company designing computer interfaces. Its software consultants will be able to meet their Fortune 500 clients over the video screen, saving time and money. Without this service they would have to travel far and wide to meet with their out-of-state clients.
The Internet shows promise, too, but speed and its own overwhelming popularity hold it back. "Now, with high-speed access you will be able to more efficiently market your products through the Internet," says Steve Garner. If you're a consumer or have a business, you have seen Internet addresses, and maybe you even have a web site or are considering one. Magazine and newspaper advertisements, brochures, reports, articles, and even radio and television commercials urge people to check out web sites. Aside from marketing, the Internet offers powerful support features for administrative and communications activities. For anybody, better communication access to the Internet can mean more productivity.
Looking Ahead
A lot of people have been waiting, waiting, waiting for these services, and are eager to put this promising technology to use. NaTel plans to make Fairfield a model for telecommunications in the world, a fiber center, explain Steve Garner and Jim Morrow.
Their prediction and dream is: "High bandwidth fiber optics will embrace the whole community, every person in Fairfield. Every home will be a potential TV station, a publishing house, consulting service, or international radio station." Communicating through an interactive combination TV, computer, and telephone, there will be no limit to what you can do. Jim Morrow's eyes glimmer as he explains that with a High Definition Interactive Multimedia on Demand (HDIMOD) terminal, you can call your friends, see your friends, talk to each other, exchange text, pictures, and videos without even dialing a number. You can tell your TV to pick a certain movie or whatever else you wish to see on the screen. "It'll be like the World Wide Web becoming High Definition Interactive Multimedia On Demand. That's what life in Fairfield can be."
