With both Bresnan Communications and McLeod U.

Monday, August 09, 1999

With both Bresnan Communications and McLeod U.S.A. Network Services, Inc. planning to come through southern Minnesota, it appears that Austin is headed for a veritable fiber-optic feast.

Feast is definitely better than famine, as a fiber-optic cable can exchange voice, video and data exchange at speeds 100 times faster than traditional technology and has a much larger carrying capacity. With fiber optics, information travels in the form of pulses of light carried on flexible strands of glass which are as thin as a human hair. With fiber, signals can travel for much longer distances, which reduces the need for amplifiers to boost and strengthen them along their route. This results in a stronger, clearer, faster signal as well as greater reliability and lower maintenance costs than the traditional electrical signals through copper wire.

In the past four months, Bresnan Communications, McLeodUSA, and Austin Utilities have all expressed varying degrees of interest in putting a fiber optics cable network in Austin:

– In May, Bresnan Communications vice president Pat Bresnan told the Austin City Council that Bresnan planned to have Austin fully connected to the best fiber optic technology available today.

– Currently, Austin Utilities is processing the results of a community survey designed to find out opinion and need for a community fiber optic network.

– Tuesday, the council will vote on selling a plot of land in the Northeast Industrial Park to Iowa-based McLeod U.S.A. Network Services, Inc. The telephone company plans to install equipment in two Austin locations – 1600 13th St. NE and 301 4th St. SE – which would serve as hubs for a fiber optic loop McLeod eventually plans to run through southern Minnesota.

Bresnan Communications

Of the three, Bresnan is the only company that made a firm promise, and Bresnan is now being acquired by Charter Communication, Inc.

In May, Bresnan representatives promised to install a fully two-way reverse activated system with minimum capacity of 750 megahertz for all its users – business and residential. At the same meeting, representatives explained that the company offers free use of the existing infrastructure to the municipalities it serves; the city would only pay the incremental costs required to hook the existing system into the different city facilities.

"When we’re done, Austin will have a better system than Minneapolis," vice president of Midwest Development John Wade said. "Austin will have every bell and whistle available."

Bresnan Communications vice president of public affairs Suzanne Thompson said the sale to Charter would not affect plans for bringing fiber optics to the Austin area.

"None of the broad concepts have changed," Thompson said. "Bresnan plans are still valid. Charter is committed to proceeding with the Southern Minnesota Interconnect project."

With such a system in place, not only will Bresnan – who bought out TCI cable company in February – be able to continue to offer vastly extended cable entertainment services, they will also be able to provide the community with high speed internet connection and data transmission as well as wireless, local and long-distance services.

"The high speed internet connection will be 50- to 100-times faster than a traditional connection," vice president Pat Bresnan said at the May informational meeting with Austin city and utilities officials. "It is always on and doesn’t require an additional phone line." In Rochester Bresnan already has a system in place, cost is $39.90 per month.

Thompson didn’t know if the project would still be completed before the new year.

McLeod USA, Inc.

The McLeodUSA telephone company is planning to run a fiber optic cable through Austin, but services won’t be available for Austin residents in the near future.

Bruce Tiemann, a spokesperson for McLeodUSA, said two "point of presence" stations would be installed in Austin this construction season, but that there isn’t a timeline for services yet.

"Right now we’re taking the initial steps toward building our network in southern Minnesota," Tiemann said from the corporation’s headquarters in Iowa. "The point of presence stations are like boosters … we’ll have two stations in Austin and one in Owatonna."

Austin Utilities interim general manager Jerry McCarthy likened McLeod’s proposal to running an interstate through "without including any on- or off-ramps."

Tiemann was not sure what exact services would be offered when McLeod expanded the network around Austin, but said the company was "trying to establish the fiber optic network as fast as it can." At the minimum, Tiemann thought the services would include local and long distance telephone as well as internet connection.

McLeodUSA provides services in 11 states now, and is planning expansion to five more. Not all of those areas are connected to a fiber optics system yet.

Austin Utilities

Austin Utilities doesn’t know what its plans are, but employees are thoroughly researching the issue. Austin Utilities representatives met with business leaders earlier in the year, to discuss any business interest in a fiber optic network for Austin, and is now awaiting the results of the recently completed community survey.

McCarthy said the municipal utility definitely is looking into building a local cable optics network, but that no final decision had been made.

"We have some needs of our own, and it’s not that much more to make it (the fiber optic cable) bigger if there’s an interest in the community," McCarthy said. "We expect to take a proposal to the board in the next two or three months."

The utility would like a fiber optic connection to each household and business in the near future to allow up-to-the-minute metering of electric and gas consumption.