What we present in this document are possible ideas for implementing these future expansions. With each proposed idea, we try to discuss most of the major issues involved with implementing the idea.
One proposal is to run fiber to all of the off campus facilities. Fiber offers greater capacity than any other guided medium. It also has less attenuation that other mediums, it is not affected by any electromagnetic interference, and it has greater repeater spacing. Thus, it would be very suitable for connecting off campus facilities. In addition, fiber would have enough capacity to handle increased traffic easily.
The major drawback to using fiber is the initial cost. The cost of installing CAT V UTP cable and one hub in a college house would cost around $3000 to $5000. This does not include the cost of running fiber to the house. Furthermore, equipment to multiplex voice onto fiber costs around $60,000 because of patents. Fiber would have to run down to brick city, Ray Hively's observatory, Norwich lodge and the Equestrian Center, as well as along College Ave and accross and along National Road. That would require a lot of cable and a lot of labor, which would be very expensive. There is an additional hurdle. National Road is a national highway, thus running wires accross National Road, whether it be above or below it, requires a federal permit. That also costs money and takes time to obtain.
An alternative solution is to use wireless technology. MASE, a company based in England, offers a wireless solution that uses a central omnidirectional transmitter/receiver with unidirectional transmitter/receivers that are placed around it. The unidirectional transmitters can be placed at most 16 Km away from the central transmitter/reciever. This system utilizes radio signals and can achieve data rates of 2Mbps. To learn more go to MASE Corporation.
One advantage of this system would be that the initial cost would be much lower than that of fiber. However, there are a few issues to be addressed. First, all of the unidirectional transmitter/receivers need to have a direct line of sight with the omnidirectional transmitter/receiver and vice-versa. Also, in order operate the system, it may be required to obtain a FCC license. This is unclear because MASE is based in England, however in general, most systems operate in range that does not require a FCC license to operate.
An alternative to wiring all of the rooms in a college house is to use a wireless solution. Proxim offers the Symphony series of porducts that allow all house residents to have a wireless LAN connection using one physical port. That would save money on cable (we're not talking tv) installation. Using one bridge, it is possible to support up to 10 computers and the computers can be as far as 100 ft from the bridge. The system uses radio (get a feeling there's a trend here? ;|) signals, so signals propagate throughout the house. The system can support rates of 1.6 Mbps, which is not as fast as UTP, but is reasonable for most applications. Setting up one ethernet bridge and 10 computers costs roughly $1450, a far cry from $5,000 per house.
Finally, one solution that would use already installed telephone wire is ADSL, Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line. ADSL is new technology used by FUSE, the ISP division of Cincinnati Bell that utilizes the existing phone line and can acheive data rates up to 1.5Mbps. There would be the initial cost of buying harware to support ADSL, as well as upgrading the phone system, which really needs work. ECS would have to support dailup again, but ADSL is supposed to be more reliable, so hopefully, it would be less of a headache.
And That's All We Have To Say About That.