Rural Broadband Service--Extending Openness to Rural Access

Is expecting traditional telecommunication and network providers to provide internet access to rural areas the wrong approach?

It seems with billions of federal dollars in play with the ARRA and broadband initiatives to bring high speed internet access the solution is still elusive. Given the new company Open Range with their partner GlobalStar last week stand in jeopardy of loosing millions in loans being unable to provide sufficient network resources to penetrate and connect subscribers with the rest of the world, I tend to think it will or could be utility providers that could be the solution to rural broadband access over typical communication providers.

Why? Name a rural community in the United States that doesn't have electrical power? I possibly haven't researched enough and I know I haven't visited every nook and cranny in the US but I am certain from working with utilities and traveling the country that the electrical grid reaches place broadband has never penetrated.

Why haven't utilities stepped up and proposed to extended broadband access to their rural clients and increased their revenue streams? Truthfully some have attempted to add internet services and lost economically not having the technical expertise and management knowledge the traditional telecommunication carriers possess. I expect others in rural areas maybe succeeding at this time with providing telecommunication services but knowing the way government draws interest and publication of winners, I haven't easily learned who the successful utilities are.

The difficulty within utilities is the primary focus on electrical distribution of power and communications technology and management have commonly been less than a secondary focus. Utilities are grappling with their own network technology needs presently with the emergence of intelligent utility initiatives presently trying to figure out how to meet NIST priorities.

I would suggest that "Smart Grid" and "Rural Broadband" are actually a marriage made in heaven but not for merely carrying meter traffic or consumer traffic riding the same fibers as utility traffic but utilizing existing over build and new optical ground wire fibers to penetrate the rural areas using the same right of ways and structures the utilities have been using for decades to move power. The issue then becomes developing the network data center and equipment rooms at the utilities command center for connection to the traditional Service Providers to the public packet data network and working out the details of the subscriber area interface or distribution each of which is an area of unfamiliarity to the utility. Yet, through partnerships and collaborations the utility could learn what it needs to add a broadband network architecture overlay to its existing electrical distribution and plan when making upgrades to electrical transmission services to add OPGW to the list and access points at remote substations and switchyards that can serve as points of presence in the rural community.

Is it regulation, money or executive ease with such new ventures that keep these possibilities from being pursued?
to be continued...

Intelligent Utility--poetically speaking

By Reese 9/1/2010

It was a warm wiggling day for power surging waves

rippling down miles of transmission line sun glistening

in the remote rural sky where seldom a truck passed by.

Two hundred miles or more from generation to the substation floor

stepping down and then out again on feeder lines to your door.

Reactively capacitance and inductance wrangled with each other

as resistance changed a little in the heat eating up real power in feet.

It was a cosine of complication of a line’s impedance crossing the nation

a power factor less than unity and reactive lines took a polar phase

as voltage raised and line capacity dropped with transformer heat flaring

in raising degrees the system would soon be brought to its knees.

Quickly the bit stream flying in a fiber optic dream transmitted the disease

conveying the message from end to end, “more balancing reactance please!

ELI needs to be put on ICE or the grid will pay a handsome price.”

Capacitors banks switched in on command a Faraday array to save the day!

Reactive switching, high voltage hissing but the impedance was changing

As load and source found a more amicable conjugate match!

Slowly it rose from 70% to where it was meant to be more near unity

and the community never witnessed or noticed the heroic act

taken care of automatically that kept their power supply intact.

Another day of smart design simply working in normalcy’s harsh reality

aided through talkative nerves communicating reactive curves

sending analog status streams and controlling a power stream

through motive bits that control and protect the line automatically

from a dynamic MW power load of every house and commercial abode

where the magic serves the multitude from three lines of solitude.