Broadband Communities

2014 Summit Special Preview

BROADBAND COMMUNITIES is the leading source of information on digital and broadband technologies for buildings and communities. Our editorial aims to accelerate the deployment of Fiber-To-The-Home and Fiber-To-The-Premises.

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34 MDUs AS MICROCOSMS OF LARGER COMMUNITIES Michael K. Smeltzer I n many ways multiple dwelling unit (MDU) buildings are microcosms of the larger communities in which they are located. From a service provider's perspective, fber to the neighborhood node in a community looks a lot like fber to the basement or to the foor of an MDU. At the same time, fber to the single-family home looks a lot like fber to the MDU unit. For MDUs, the traditional path has been to bring a single high bandwidth circuit (perhaps over fber) into the building. From there, Ethernet switches and copper cables distribute bandwidth to all units. Tat tried-and-true model can work well with some sophisticated bandwidth shaping to keep heavy users from overwhelming the shared connection. Indeed, the larger the MDU complex, the better statistical multiplexing works. But an all-fber solution works better. Bringing fber into every unit used to be much more expensive. However, the development of fexible fber has made fber comparable to or less than copper in new construction. In large complexes, where cable runs might exceed 300 feet, deploying fber to the units also allows the core electronics to be more centrally located due to the distance limitations of copper cables. In the UC2B project in Champaign-Urbana, we had the opportunity to work with the private developer of a public housing complex to bring fber into each of the 36 dwelling units distributed across fve 5 buildings. During construction we had access to the stud-walls before sheetrock, so we ran a small conduit for the fber into each unit from a central point in each building. We also networked each unit with Category 5e copper Ethernet cables into each bedroom and living room – up to four Ethernet drops per unit. Tis has turned out well; the Champaign County Housing Authority is considering this design for all future projects. Above: Michael K. Smeltzer Above right: Summit participants will get plenty of time to quiz Smeltzer on MDU broadband communities Fiber is cheaper than copper in typical new construction, and delivers so much more. Register Now www.bbcmag.com BBC_SummitPromo_Feb14.indd 34 2/12/14 5:51 PM

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