By April, 324 V.I. schools, libraries, universities, healthcare facilities, government agencies and other community institutions have been promised dedicated fiber-optic cables, free high-bandwidth fiber routers and access to inexpensive, blisteringly fast, extremely reliable Internet service, V.I. Next Generation Network officers told those institution’s representatives Friday.
The informational and planning meeting was held, appropriately enough, by video teleconference in VITEMA offices on St. Thomas and St. Croix.
Representatives of dozens of those institutions, from private schools to the Department of Labor, got to hear specific, detailed information about what they needed to do to prepare and exactly what they would be provided with.
The viNGN will run fiber optic cable from one of a number of fiber access points currently being finished and supplied around the territory, to a communications room in each of the selected community anchor institutions, viNGN Governing Board Secretary Peter Schultz said.
The fiber will be able to provide vastly more bandwidth than is currently possible in the territory, at what should be a very low price, according to Schultz.
Each anchor institution will have a capacity of about one gigabyte per second of bandwidth, he said. For comparison, DSL or cable Internet typically provide between half and one megabyte per second, and a movie might take between several hours to two days to download. Fiber would typically carry between 10 and 100 mbps, and download a complete, high-definition movie in three to 12 minutes, he said, showing a PowerPoint presentation with much of the technical information as he spoke.
Each institution will also get, free of charge, a CISCO ME 3400E router, so they will have only to get an Internet service provider and plug their office network into the router, added Kevin Hughes, vice president of sales and marketing for the network.
"The whole idea, the reason you are a part of this network is to raise the level of bandwidth to our schools, hospitals, universities and government agencies … to a minimum of one gig of bandwidth if not more,” Hughes said. A room or closet will need to be prepared by each institution, but the space requirements are small; perhaps as little as a shelf, he said.
"Once the network is built, we will bring fiber into your IT closet or room, give you the router you saw all for free and then your ISP will hook into that and provide service," Hughes said.
"From there, how that bandwidth gets distributed into your organization is entirely up to you, whether wireless or fiber or whatever," he said.
The federal grants paying for the work require viNGN to be a "middle mile" wholesaler and not an end-provider, so they will all still have to pay for internet service from a third party – as they do now – but the quality, quantity, reliability and probably price should all be vastly improved.
While they do not control the final price, viNGN has purchased a vast amount of bandwidth at a massive discount, far below what the territory’s Internet providers are paying currently. Internet providers "will be buying the bandwidth wholesale from us," and should be passing much of that savings onto the customers, Schultz said.
Under the terms of the federal grants paying for these connections, as well as a territory-wide fiber optic network, all the work must be completed by July. Work is under way now, materials are on island, network trenching has begun and contracts for the final installations of equipment are being issued rapidly.
"I feel confident we will be complete before July of next year," he said. "Current projections by our engineering groups are that this will be completed by the end of March so we are giving ourselves a cushion to make sure we get it done in time," Schultz said.
Some of the institution representatives asked what the final cost for Internet would be. Schultz responded there is no way to say for sure, but since viNGN would be selling it to providers for less than they can purchase it now, some of that savings should be passed onto consumers. And if providers choose not to pass the savings along, "it is a competitive market, and if one sells for a higher price, they can be undercut. But we cannot enforce that," Schultz said.
