Municipal FTTH DeployMenT SnapSHoT

22 | BROADBAND PROPERTIES | www.broadbandproperties.com | April 2009

BackgroundProvider name: Gainesville Regional Utilities (GRUCom)Public entity owning the provider:

City of Gainesville, Florida FTTH/FTTB service area: Gainesville Regional Utilities ser-

vice area, which includes Gainesville and the surround-ing unincorporated areas

number of FTTH/FTTB subscribers: 4,800 competitive landscape: AT&T offers DSL and telephone;

Cox Communications offers triple-play services

neTwork ProFileMiles of fiber backbone: 300 cable milesnetwork architecture: Active Ethernet – FTTB for busi-

nesses and multiple dwelling units, FTTH for greenfield housing developments

Business model: Both wholesale (bulk services through MDU owners) and retail

Services offered: GRUCom provides both Metro Ethernet and SONET-based services including high-speed Inter-net access (bulk and retail), data transport, data center co-location, public safety data and radio communica-tions, and carrier-class, point-to-point data circuits. Ac-celerated dial-up Internet access is also offered.

Highest tier internet access speeds: 100 Mbps symmetrical

Year deployment started: GRUCom began offering com-mercial services in 1996, then added high-speed Inter-net access in 2000.

Years to complete buildout: Buildout is continuing; the FTTH project begun in 2007 will take 10 years to complete

econoMic develoPMenT iMPacTOur network has attracted businesses to the area and al-lowed them to expand. The Progress Corporate Park,

located outside Alachua, Florida, is one example. The re-search park is home to many businesses, including the University of Florida’s Sid Martin Biotechnology Incubator. Since we began offering services to businesses in the park in 1998 there has been growth in the biotech sector and new buildings continue to spring up in the park.

GRUCom is also scheduled to provide fiber services to Santa Fe College’s new Alachua Corporate Training Center, which will be located next to Progress Corporate Park. The center will provide workforce training for the biotech in-dustry.

The City of Gainesville also partnered with the Council on Economic Development to provide high-speed connec-tivity to the Gainesville Technology Enterprise Center, which fosters early-stage technology start-up companies. Several businesses that received connectivity at the enterprise cen-ter have matured and moved to locations where GRUCom’s services are available and continue to use them today. The

Gainesville Regional utilities – Gainesville, Florida

This month’s featured municipal FTTH deployer is Gainesville Regional Utilities (GRUCom), the fiber-to-the-home pro-vider for the city of Gainesville, Florida, and surrounding areas. GRU began by providing network connectivity to city govern-ment and schools – which it still does – and expanded its mission to deliver Ethernet-based services to businesses in the 1990s, well before fiber-to-the-premises technology had even come of age. Later it added connections to MDUs, predominantly for student housing (GRU’s residential service is called Gator.net, after the University of Florida’s athletic teams), and in 2007 it began serving fiber to homes in greenfield housing developments. Our thanks to Frank Latini, Technical Services Manager, and Tammy Snyder, Network Operations Center Supervisor, for gathering the information for this snapshot. Find out more at www.gru.com.

– BBP Editors

April 2009 | www.broadbandproperties.com | BROADBAND PROPERTIES | 23

Municipal FTTH DeployMenT SnapSHoT

fiber network has also allowed several existing companies to receive superior service at much lower prices.

FTTH dePloYMenT TeaMDesign, construction, installation, and integration are all

handled in-house by GRUCom staff

dePloYMenT deTailSaerial, underground, or both? BothMethod for underground installation: Directional bor-

ing; all underground fiber is in conduitMethod for connecting fiber: Field splicing

oPeraTing equiPMenTcentral office electronics: Nortel and Cisco routers and

switchesFiber cables: Corningcustomer premises equipment: ReadyLinks Rhino Opti-

cal Services Gateway (OSG and OSG-H), Transition Net-works media converters

keY SoFTwareB/oSS: SAPgeographic information System: ESRInetwork management system: OSP Insight

neTwork oPeraTionnumber of central office personnel: 6number of oSP personnel: 6number of cSrs: 9

BiggeST cHallengeOur biggest challenge has been explaining to our custom-ers, in terms that are meaningful to them, why FTTH is so much better than copper. Recently during a conversion from Long-Reach Ethernet [a protocol that delivers high-speed data over copper wires] to FTTH many customers questioned why we were making the switch. Because the

technology is new to this area, many did not know the ben-efits of fiber, why they should want a fiber connection and how it will pave the way for the next wave of technology. Sometimes in our excitement to provide customers with better services, we forget the importance of educating them so they see the value in what we are doing.

BiggeST SucceSSOur biggest success was bringing FTTH to our community. By operating an active Ethernet network, we have ensured that our users do not experience bottlenecks during peak-usage times. Because we are in an academic community, we pride ourselves on managing our network so it is con-sistently reliable and consistently fast – the key word being “consistent.”

As a municipal utility, we are very community-focused, and part of that community is the large student popula-tion that we serve. Gainesville is unusual in that we have the University of Florida, Santa Fe College, Shands at UF Teaching Hospital and a large Veteran’s hospital, as well as a growing biotech industry. We are continuing to grow our FTTB service because there is such a demand from property owners whose residents need high-speed Internet service. As a local provider, we are aware of the nuances in our com-munity and tailor our services to meet those needs.

We watch the academic calendar and plan our mainte-nance around it, and we staff so that we are prepared for issues. Reliability is so important to us that in 2004 we dis-patched staff to fix a network issue in the midst of making hurricane preparations for a storm that was approaching our area and expected to make landfall the next day. BBP

Contact Masha Zager at masha@broadbandproperties.com if you would like your municipal fiber deployment to be featured in Broadband Properties.