Like many other people, I've about given up on the local telephone companies offering anything reasonable in terms of Internet access. TDS, the local ILEC in this area, now provides a wire line based (DSL) Internet access solution but it is fully 10 years out of date and way too late and primitive for me to consider. Because Internet access is unregulated, Qwest could offer access in this area but telcos are very careful not to tread on each others regulated service territories. Up to this point WiFi has been the wireless solution of choice for providing Internet access where telcos has refused to do so. WiFi is license free, easily interfered with and underpowered for the distances to be covered. A new and much more powerful technology, in terms of sophistication and distance, is now available. This new technology is known as the Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access (WIMAX)

Over the past couple of years, this general area has seen a movement to consolidate existing independent and relatively small wireless providers through buy outs by larger better organized, experienced and funded providers. In this specific area Sopris Surfers has purchased and taken over a number of small wireless providers in the Delta, Montrose and North Fork Valley area. They are currently headquartered in Carbondale but have branch operations in Montrose and Delta. Their verbally stated plan is to overbuild and replace the badly outdated current systems. As of this writing, Sopris is reported to be standardized on the Motorola Canopy product. Canopy predates Wimax by quite a few years but provides many of the same functions. A late 2005 comparison between Canopy and Wimax can be read at this location. For additional information, search the Motorola Canopy site for the term Wimax.

Fiber optic cable is by far the best technology solution for delivering broadband services but I don't see fiber as an option in this area given the cost of installation. Other rural communities have been able to install fiber with grant money provided by the U.S. Government but I don't see this as an option here. In quite a few other rural communities the respective electric power supplier has stepped up to provide the required fiber optic cable construction but I don't see that as an option here as well. In this area, much of the outside telephone cabling is quite old. It's widely known that the speed at which broadband services can be delivered over metallic telephone cable pairs is inversely proportionally to the distance from the nearest Digital Subscriber Line Access Multiplexer (DSLAM) and the amount of electrical noise present on the cable pairs. In any case, delivery of broadband service via telephone cable pair is limited to a maximum of 18,000 cable pair feet. The further the customer is from the DSLAM and the noisier the cable pair the slower the delivery of service will be. Delivery of services by fiber, on the other hand, can typically be accomplished over distances of 12 miles or greater. There is no speed penalty for either distance or electrical noise with fiber.

First, the service provider has the option of licensing frequencies with the FCC so there can be no interference from other systems. Secondly, data packets can carry identifiers that allow priority transmission for services such as voice or real-time video that can not tolerate transmission delays. This means that WIMAX has the ability to provide telephone service not unlike the legacy wire-based analog telephone service of years past. Several studies now suggest that WIMAX in rural areas is now more cost effective and cost efficient than delivering like services via outside wire-line telephone cable. It will be interesting to see what happens in this area.

Please continue to next page - - Telco -- TDS -- Qwest

• Wireless Revolution
• $267 Million for WIMAX
• Open Range Communications
• What is WIMAX
• WIMAX Wikipedia
• WIMAX Trends
• WIMAX Networking
• WIMAX Money Issues
• WIMAX & Colorado
• Canopy vs. WIMAX
• Alvarion, IBM & Public Safety
• WIMAX Networking
• LTE Future

• Microwave Path Design

• Airspan Inc.
• Alvarion Inc.
• Aperto Inc.
• Axxcelera Inc.
• ET Industries
• Nokia Siemens Networks
• Red Line Inc.
• Selex Communications Inc.
• Sequans Inc.
• SR Telecom
• Telsima Inc.
• Wavesat Inc.
• Intel WIMAX