* Reader responds to the question of mid-band Ethernet vs. high-speed DSL
In a recent column, we compared the seemingly overlapping areas of low-speed metro Ethernet services with higher speed DSL services. Both provide download speeds in the 2Mbps to 8Mbps range, and we asked you what you saw as decision points between the two services.
We received an especially thoughtful response from Brian Scholin, district technology coordinator for the Pine City Public Schools in Minnesota. Brian wrote: “I realize that my situation is a bit different from what most SOHOs, etc, have to contend with, but I think the same principles may apply. I work for a public school district, which is a member of several different consortia, some of which provide technology services. One of them has been providing interactive video between 12 school districts in central Minnesota for 20-plus years. We began with microwave. I experimented a bit with data over that system, but it was not easy or good. But then, we didn’t do much with data back then.
“When our microwave system reached end-of-life, and we started investigating a replacement, I pushed for as much of the system being Ethernet as possible, but no one else saw the point. Each school district already had a frame relay line for data, and who could need more? We ended up with an ATM CVDS uncompressed video system. Then people started seeing the need for more data. We added, at great cost, T-1 circuits to ATM equipment, and the consortium started providing the data service. Then T-1 speeds became slow, and we added, at huge cost, DS-3 cards to the ATM system, for those districts that needed it.
“When our ATM system reached end-of-life, and we started investigating a replacement, I again pushed for Ethernet. One of the bidders agreed, and we started to negotiate details. Since they were proposing a fiber system, and the compressed video channels need tens of megabits each, we thought we needed 100Mbps of transport per district. The vendor came back with prices, and for a small percentage increase, we could go to gigabit Ethernet. Some thought that was overkill, but we went with the gig equipment.
“So now, at the lowest cost of the various systems that were proposed, we have Gigabit Ethernet transport, connecting more than a dozen districts, over a several hundred mile ‘LAN’, really. And the flexibility is amazing. We can dump as much video as we want on the system, between districts. And next year, we can pay a bit more money, and our provider will just open up the router tap, and we can double our bandwidth again (or more), all without changing any equipment. We are even looking into shared off-site backups, shared servers, and other things that our ‘unlimited’ transport within our ‘LAN’ makes possible.
“I guess my point is that Ethernet is the lingua franca of data. Since it is so widely used, the hardware is far cheaper than other choices. And you can put video, data, or pretty much anything else on it. And those who are only ‘sort-of’ experts can understand and work with the system. If we need to reconfigure our system, we can re-cable ourselves. We don’t need a microwave expert, or an ATM expert, or a DSL expert to make changes. We know enough to plug whatever we want into the right Ethernet jacks, and have a fair chance of its working.
“I think the same thing applies to SOHO Ethernet, though the scale may be different. Metcalfe chose the right name for Ethernet. Almost anyone can use the ether for almost anything, even if they don’t totally understand why it works. That’s an unbeatable situation. Go with Ethernet wherever and whenever you can!”
Thanks so much to Brian for sharing this great story! And we’ll soon be hearing from a service provider that provides both services and its view on how to make the choice.
