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.
Issue link: https://bbcmag.epubxp.com/i/232134
MUNICIPAL FTTP DEPLOYMENT SNAPSHOT Te plan called for BWP to provide retail telecommunications services. Te Burbank City Charter defned utility services broadly, not limiting them to water and power. Te fber optic network would help improve communications technology where available. BWP would provide this service at cost, without long-term subsidies by electricity customers. Te intent of the plan was to provide a broad range of telecommunications services and attract new services and service providers, starting with simpler applications and expanding into more complex applications. Te plan also called for BWP to work with other telecommunications companies and provide services in a cost-efective manner. Specialized service providers and the city could both compete and cooperate in bringing modern telecommunications services to the city at a competitive price. Initial coverage was designed to provide services to BWP's electrical facilities and would allow the linkage of the media district, the airport and downtown. Additional fber backbone would be constructed as needed and feasible. Constructing a telecommunications system with sufcient capacity to meet the needs of the utility and others required larger capability than the city would construct for its own needs. At the time, other ETHERNET SWITCHED SERVICES NETWORK The Ethernet Switched Services Network (ESSN) is the fber network that supports BWP's command and control network. This network uses only BWP facilities and is colocated with its power lines. Access to the fber and associated devices is restricted and monitored. The system is designed to operate without interruption or loss of performance during extreme emergencies, including blackouts, earthquakes and other disasters. Although most such networks are designed to work with a best-eforts response, this network is designed to operate at a specifc level of service even if any one element is out of service. The ESSN uses carrier-class equipment that not only connects to the Internet but also routes trafc over specifc Internet pathways. Managing the route through the Internet allows BWP to control and manage applications across the Internet. This ability to route trafc allows BWP to employ a high level of security in its network. It can take any signal from a given port, add certain information and then allow that signal to be delivered only to specifc ports. In this manner, trafc from the Wi-Fi mesh can be insulated from contact with the ports that control the substations or power plants. The ESSN also supports Multiple Protocol Layer Switching (MPLS), a method of ensuring that certain applications are not delayed in passing across the network. This is very useful for video and voice applications in which delays can cause a picture to freeze or audio to distort. A network using MPLS can identify which streams contain video and audio so those streams are not delayed during periods of congestion. MPLS allows BWP to ensure that signals associated with protection of the electric system are not delayed in the network. A signal to trip a breaker must get through the system as soon as possible to efectively protect the power grid. 26 The ESSN supports IPv6, the next generation of Internet Protocol. An important feature of IPv6 is the ability to send a single stream of data to multiple receiving devices, allowing transmission of video or voice over a limited bandwidth path to multiple recipients without unnecessarily congesting trafc. This method is also a very fast way for the electric utility to send a command to shed load to a large number of devices in a single instance. This can provide for a very fast load-shedding response. The ESSN is composed of three 10 Gbps switches located at three separate locations in the city. Each switch is directly tied to the other two switches over 10 Gbps links. Each of the three switches is linked to about a third of the BWP substations and provides an alternative feed to another third of the substations. This approach ensures that any element can fail and service can still be maintained to all substations. ONE BURBANK Under previous city council authorizations, BWP ofered customers dark fber leasing and Communication Transport Service – Video. In January 2011, BWP added to its service oferings high-speed, high-quality, fber optics–based data communication via its Ethernet Switched Service Network to Burbank customers through its new ONE Burbank (Optical Network Enterprise Burbank) service. ONE Burbank is best viewed as a means of obtaining revenue from otherwise underutilized capacity from BWP's smart grid communications network while fulflling customer needs for high-speed, secure data communications. This program promotes economic development by providing customers with very high-speed communications and Internet access at competitive prices, thus promoting business in the community. | BROADBAND COMMUNITIES | www.broadbandcommunities.com | NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2013