“It’s exciting to watch as the surrounding PUDs get lit and start to provide open access wholesale services to their communities,” said Jones. “Hold on; Kitsap isn’t far behind, with a planned lighting ceremony in July.”

Currently the CCPUD backbone runs between Port Angeles and Sequim, with plans to expand into areas of Happy Valley, the airport, the City of Port Angeles and neighboring City of Forks.

Also part of the plan is how the backbone will take advantage of a larger existing network, the Northwest Open Access Network (NoaNet). Not unlike building a road to intersect with highways, connecting with NoaNet makes the CCPUD’s network stable and redundant. With critical services potentially using the bandwidth, communications must remain up in the event of a line break. By laying the fiber in a loop, or ring, data can be rerouted around the break to arrive at its destination.

According to CCPUD Assistant General Manager Fred Mitchell, the network could have been helpful when energy prices were soaring.

“If this network was in place last year when energy costs rose to $1,000 per megawatt hour, we could have reduced energy usage during off-peak hours, creating a substantial amount of reserves,” said Mitchell.

The CCPUD networks’ beauty lies not only in its connectivity, but also in speed and abundant capacity.

To illustrate this, Sales Engineer Kent Johnson used different sized circles to represent various access capabilities. A 56Kbps modem, the most common method in use today for Internet access, was barely visible when compared to the network’s Gigabit “pipe.”

Johnson also demonstrated the network’s speed by downloading a 76MB (76 Million bits of data) file located in Wenatchee. In a previous test using DSL, it took over seven hours to receive the file. Using the fiber-optic network, it took one minute, 20 seconds.

With 144 strands of fiber, the CCPUD will need only 24 for its use. That will leave a lot of available “highway” for other service providers. Traditional ISPs, video on demand, distance learning and even voice over IP could all hop on board.

Although the CCPUD is building the network, it will not provide services directly to the consumer, but rather sell wholesale bandwidth to companies in the business of providing services.

“The PUD’s advantage is in its purpose, which is to serve the public good,” said Clallam County Commissioners President Hugh Haffner. “It is not beholden to shareholders and can use that to its advantage when providing wholesale access.”

Attendees also got a chance to look at a nondescript metal box being used by neighboring Grant County PUD’s Zipp Network. Approximately 15 inches wide and 18 inches tall, the box is installed at the end-users’ home or business to provide access to the network. Known as a Customer Gateway Device, it has room for up to eight service providers and continues to be improved.

Doug Harrison of the CCPUD noted that, with a waiting list to get on its network, Grant County’s PUD was surprised to see how the demographics played out.

“Business was the obvious user and expected to be the bread and butter of the network. But when previously separate services such as Internet access and cable TV were bundled and offered for less than existing costs, it was low-income residents that drove the economic engine,” said Harrison.

He concluded, “Looking at Grant County, we may be surprised by what it might teach us.”

The work is far from done. Currently being used for internal CCPUD communication, over the next 12 months, plans include testing the system, determining interest of both service providers and consumer, using it for remote Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition (SCADA) and Automatic Meter Reading (AMR), and rolling it out to up to 250 end-users.

The real question may remain will the consumer want it? If history is any indication, what might seem futuristic technology now could become as common and expected as running water.