Local Fiber Initiatives: What's in Store for the Metro Area?

Joyce Winslow
jwins@oregon.uoregon.edu

As demand for Internet connectivity increases, public agencies and local municipalities are accelerating efforts to deploy fiber to meet that need.

In the Eugene-Springfield area, the University of Oregon and other agencies have purchased and installed their own fiber to replace the leased high-speed phone lines. In addition to the UO, the consortium includes the City of Eugene, the Springfield Utility Board (SUB), the Eugene Water and Electric Board (EWEB), the Lane Transit District (LTD), Lane County, the Lane Council of Governments, and the 4J School District.

To better serve the community, these agencies have created a cooperative network called PANet (Public Agency Network) to share fiber resources. Thanks to PANet's efforts, a very high-speed LuxN DWDM (dense wave division multiplexing) network running at gigabit ethernet speed, is now available. This network sends colors of light over two fibers, connecting downtown Eugene, 4J, LTD, the UO, and the City of Springfield.

Future projects. EWEB is currently working on a plan to expand its existing 70-mile fiber-optic network to provide ultra-high-speed universal commercial services to Eugene businesses and homes over the next decade. The proposed network, called "MetroNet," would transmit large volumes of information at speeds 100 to 1000 times faster than those of most commercial telecommunications networks today.