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Technology, The Internet, Real Estate and
your business: How they relate
today and tomorrow
By Jim Kendall |
Bandwidth Chart
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Connection
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Bandwidth
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Payload
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DS-0 (POTS)*
DS-1 (T-1)
DS-3 (T-3)
STS-1/OC-1
STS-3/OC-3
STS-12/OC12
STS-48/OC48
STS-96/OC96
OC-192 |
64 Kbps
1.544 Mbps
44.7 Mbps
51.84 Mbps
155.520 Mbps
622.08 Mbps
2488.32 Mbps
4976.64 Mbps
9953.28 Mbps
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1 DS-0
24 DS-0’s
28 DS-1’s (672 DS-0’s)
1 DS-3 (672 DS-0’s)
3 DS-3’s (2016 DS-0’s)
12 DS-3’s (8064 DS-0’s)
48 DS-3’s (32,256 DS-0’s)
96 DS-3’s (64,512 DS-0’s)
192 DS-3’s (129,024 DS0)
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OC — Optical Carrier (fiber)
*POTS — “Plain Old Telephone Service”
STS — Electrical/Radio
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When considering the impacts of technology on real estate, our thinking must extend well beyond the “Internet Presence” issues of e-commerce and real estate sales. We need to be actively pursuing the means to extend service to commercial and non-commercial projects, both existing and planned.
No longer can a community expect to prosper without an active program of extending service to the business park, or residential areas. That is especially true for real estate professionals. While the use of the internet has revolutionized the real estate industry, as well as how all successful companies will do business, those tools are of no use if the consumer of those services cannot access them.
Real estate professionals and developers must factor in the need to build-in the infrastructure in a development so that the eventual tenants and owners can enjoy the technology services our hi-tech society now demands.
The semi-rural nature of Kitsap County is an enticement to live in this county. This semi-rural nature has also hampered the installation of high bandwidth communications throughout the county. Currently, one carrier transports the majority of all communication to and from Kitsap county. That carrier has the only high bandwidth connection (fiber optic cable) between Seattle and Kitsap County.
Other Kitsap County telecommunication providers lease services from that sole carrier to connect to Seattle and beyond. Local telecommunications companies also control other available connections including older microwave links normally used for voice circuits connections to Seattle.
Communications within the county are further complicated by the existence of four distinct service areas served by three telephone companies (US West, Sprint, and CenturyTel). Establishing voice or data routes between these service areas inserts additional costs ranging as high as 40 to 60 percent, as well as creating management and maintenance problems that would otherwise not occur.
Business development mandates access to high bandwidth. Existing businesses have begun to feel the pressure to be connected to the Internet. New businesses expect to be connected to the internet, and connection speed is critical. Kitsap County is under-built with communications infrastructure to support high bandwidth service. The county is at a significant disadvantage trying to retain existing business and in attracting new businesses from this standpoint alone. Not surprisingly, such a disadvantage translates into a restraint on home sales.
Our very clear need, which has yet to be fully met on the Kitsap Peninsula, is affordable, reliable and widely available competitive high-speed voice and data services. Because of the historical boundaries of the Incumbent Local Exchange Carrier (ILEC) service areas, Kitsap County lags behind in building countywide high speed Telecomm/Data infrastructure. The transportation choke points at the Tacoma Narrows and Kitsap County ferry terminals parallel the problems of inadequate telecomm/data infrastructure.
The inability to transport people and goods efficiently to and from the peninsula mandates that a method of relief be found. To fix the transportation issue without spending hundreds of millions of dollars is not possible. One alternative, widely recognized as effective and immediately useful, is upgrading the telecommunications and data delivery infrastructure to provision “Telecommuting” and “Hi-Technology” businesses.
Fiber cable infrastructure has, until now, not been built by large communication companies due to lower financial reward when compared to large business areas such as Seattle and Bellevue. And there are additional regulatory restraints on the ILEC’s (incumbent Telco’s) hampering infrastructure buildout. Other independent providers have reviewed the market area and have chosen to not enter the Kitsap County/West Sound market at this time.
There are several options under consideration by a wide variety of players. So far, AT &T (through the cable companies AT&T acquired) is the most visibly busy provider laying new infrastructure. With the passage of the PUD bill, a new option may come available, but that is unlikely to be within a year or two. Further infrastructure is being extended to the Olympic Peninsula through Kitsap County. All of these initiatives will help, but do not fully address the need.
Once high bandwidth communications infrastructure is built in Kitsap County, the area can experience similar service pricing as areas on the east side of Puget Sound.
The Seattle, Bellevue and Redmond markets have communication competition. This has helped to drive the end use costs lower. The existing Telco pricing model used in the West Sound areas imposes the addition of expenses to be added when extending service from Seattle to Kitsap County. When additional high bandwidth connections cross the sound and fiber cable is constructed throughout Kitsap County, service will be more widely available, the cost will be lower and the new connections will provide the same access to bandwidth as the East Sound.
The improvement in cost and availability will make Kitsap County as much a player in attracting business as any East Side area. Other demographics will help boost the economic potential in Kitsap County once this project is in place.
What is this “high bandwidth” we are so concerned about? It is simply “the size of the pipe.” The following chart gives you a reference for what it means to have at T-1 or a DS-3 or an OC-3 connection into a neighborhood, a business park, or a community. It is not trivial information.
The key link to all the wonderful high speed “pipe” that makes it all work is what is known as the “last mile” link. This is the link to reach the end user. With advances in technology, that last mile link will be delivered several ways, including wireless, fiber optic cable, and legacy copper. Wireless technologies have matured remarkably during the past two to three years and now offer a very competitive means to deliver volume voice circuits as well as data.
With the extending of fiber optic networks, super high speed connections are potentially available. With the accelerating evolution of data technologies, existing copper is being used for higher and higher speed connections. Many of these elements are in place, in construction or in planning.
Key will be the old mantra: “location, location, location.” Just as communities died when they were bypassed by the railroad, by highways, and by the interstate, the health of communities will increasingly depend on not being bypassed by the “communications super-highway.” We need to make sure our communities and our county thrive in the continuing “revolution.”
(Editor’s Note: Jim Kendall is President of Telebyte NW Internet Services. Telebyte was the first Kitsap County based Internet Service Provider to offer a direct internet backbone connection and full Internet Services. He is also President of the Washington Association of Internet Service Providers (WAISP) He can be reached at jim@telebyte.com, or
360-613-5220.)
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