Wisconsin Builder | Net Work | Can Wisconsin realize its digital dreams?

High-Speed Chase

WISCONSIN BRIDGES THE DIGITAL DIVIDE

By Sean Ryan

It could’ve been ugly. There could ’ve been dead computers littering the streets of Antigo,victims of long falls from office windows,monitors smashed by frustrated fists.It’s a scary thought, but slow Internet service has a way of bringing out the worst in people.

It also has a way of forcing businesses to move to speedier climates.

That’s the message Antigo’s business owners delivered when they called City Hall.They wanted broadband,or they were leaving.

But what could a city of 10,000 people do? From the local industrial park to the home offices on residential streets, high-speed Internet service was just a digital dream.And the local telecom providers, Charter Communications and Verizon Communications,weren’t much help when it came to broadband upgrades.

“They said that they were building those as fast as they could,but we were not a high-priority area for them, so we were on the back burner,” said Jim Pike,Antigo ’s com- munications and technology supervisor.“Who are you to tell us what we need?”

City officials, realizing that what once was an inconvenience had escalated into a fight for Antigo’s economic future,decided to upgrade the city ’s telecommunication lines themselves.

This year,the city will lay a fiber-optic wire down the center of town.It can carry more information at a faster rate than traditional copper wires,and it will allow the city to pipe high-speed Internet to its industrial park and many of its residences through existing copper phone lines.After the city approved the plan,Verizon sped up its efforts to provide high-speed Internet to the area.

Antigo is just one small corner of an entire state that ’s getting wired.

A 2002 Public Service Commission survey reported that Wisconsin’s communications pro- viders together offered broadband service — a catchall term for high-speed Internet — to a little more than 80 percent of the state,said Gary Evenson,administrator of the PSC Telecommunications Division.

“I would describe it as pockets,” Evenson said of the places without broadband. “I think you are seeing a lot of companies concentrating more on broadband because they think that ’s where the customer demand is going to be.”

The numbers tend to prove the theory.Between 2002 and 2003, Wisconsin residents bought 57,000 new broadband connections,bring- ing the state total to 402,000.

Telecommunications providers saw more customers signing up for broadband and started upgrading their networks to make the service more available. Those providers now either pipe the necessary fiber directly into buildings, a process called fiber to the premises, or stop at about 1,000 feet from the building.

And each provider is trying to beat its competition. Telephone and cable companies are racing to improve their individual networks, and both are trying to finish before wireless services hit the market.

"There's going to be multiple pipes — wireless and wireline — competing for consumers' attention," said Paul LaSchiazza, president of telecommunications provider SBC Wisconsin. "It just drives additional advanced infrastructure deployment."

The drive for new infrastructure and the competition between telecom providers is music to the ears of communications contractors.

"It was so strong for a period of time there, and then it went to nothing," said Richard Wanta, executive director of the Wisconsin Underground Contractors Association. "Nothing was done for years, but now it's time to get busy again."

The new work for contractors will pick up where the old projects left off. In the late 1990s, telecom providers focused mostly on setting up major fiber-optic highways linking one city to another.

But as the providers go deeper, taking fiber to the premises or at least to the general area, they're turning to companies like Michels Corp. to get the job done. The Brownsville-based company, which is laying fiber-optic wires in a few different states for Verizon, is answering a more focused request than it might have four years ago.

"Any time your customer spends money, it's a big plus," said Ron Tagliapietra, senior vice president of Michels. "It's such a different type of construction because in the long haul, it was mostly rural, tying cities together. Now we're building the off-ramps and fiber to the premises."

The race to spread fiber and broadband into new areas presents development opportunities for areas that never had the service before. It could also hamstring communities that are lower on the list to receive network upgrades.

Some rural communities, like Antigo, are already falling behind because providers first build fiber in populated areas and then branch out to smaller municipalities.

"They're tired of waiting for XYZ company to meet their business-park expansion needs," said Scott Meske, government affairs director for the Municipal Electric Utilities of Wisconsin. "Those communities that embrace it, understand it and utilize it are going to succeed."

Some rural communities are updating their own networks and creating their own providers rather than waiting for private companies to install fiber. By February 2004, the PSC granted 26 municipalities authority to set up communications providers, and at least eight followed through.

Waupaca created a wireless broadband service in 2002 after Centerline Machine Inc. threatened to leave if the city didn't get it, said Henry Velecker, the city administrator.

"We wanted to improve our quality of life," he said. "We wanted to single ourselves out as a community."

Waupaca's wireless service went live in October 2002. Centerline Machine is still in town. Furthermore, the local provider has been adding about 10 users a month, with 60 percent of them outside the city limits, Velecker said.

Sun Prairie and Reedsburg are seeing similar results. Both began thinking about a fiber loop in the late 1990s to connect their schools and sewage stations. After word got out about the plans, local businesses called to get a piece of the action.

"I don't know if we brought anybody into town," said Larry Bocock, manager of the Sun Prairie Water and Light Utility. "We probably kept a few. We're one of the fastest-growing cities in the state. We're just trying to keep up with the growth."

By summer's end, Reedsburg will have fiber running into every building in town, said Dave Mikonowicz, Reedsburg's utility manager. The city is working on a marketing pitch to highlight its big-city communications in a small-town atmosphere.

"We just haven't had the time to sit down and brainstorm because we've been so busy building," Mikonowicz said. "The intangible benefit is what it has done for our existing businesses. Some of them are expanding. They are staying."

If Sun Prairie and Reedsburg represent the present status of telecommunications, then Pabst Farms is the future. Pabst Farms Development LLC partnered with SBC to create the most comprehensive communications network in the country for the Oconomowoc development.

Pabst Farms has wireless Internet, fiber to the premises, two fiber networks in case one goes down and houses specially wired to take full advantage of the infrastructure, said Bronson Haase, president of Pabst Farms Equity Ventures. Pabst Farms is the first development in Wisconsin — and SBC is the first company — to achieve the industry goal of convergence, which is placing telephone, Internet, television and cell phone connections on a single bill.

"It's gotten a very high interest from the residential customers and from the business customers because we have the most advanced telecommunications infrastructure in any place in the U.S.A.," he said. "We're on the leading, bleeding edge. It's obviously a significant value added for any business that wants to come here."

Pabst Farms has sold all of the 170 houses slated for construction in the development, and it has landed an $80 million Roundy's Inc. distribution center and, pending government approval, a new $85 million Aurora Health Care facility.

Haase also has encouraged SBC to use Pabst Farms as a testing ground for its U-Verse service, which will offer customers a customizable mix of telephone, broadband and television services. SBC announced the service in January and hopes to make U-Verse its flagship service. It plans to spend $4 billion nationwide over the next two years to prepare its network for the increased information load.

And SBC's U-Verse brings the telecom-munications loop full circle, back to the competition that fuels the developments and construction.

Hoping to stay even with SBC, Verizon is planning to hire 3,000 to 5,000 new employees this year to link 3 million homes and businesses with fiber-optic cable. TDS Telecom has already spent $400 million since 1998 to establish its own fiber-optic network in Wisconsin, and it's looking for cost-effective opportunities to build fiber to the premises within its service areas.

Charter has plans to upgrade its cable network's hardware so it can expand its phone service, which operates like any other phone line but transmits the calls as Internet data. Wausau was home to the first U.S. test of the technology four years ago.

And on top of it all, the Wisconsin Department of Administration wants to link every wireless Internet service in the state through a state contract, said Matt Miszewski, Wisconsin's chief information officer. The state wants providers across the state to agree to provide service to each other's customers, allowing any user to get a wireless broadband connection no matter where they are.

"What we're doing is trying to make sure that the private sector has wireless in the state and in municipalities specifically," Miszewski said. "If we eventually get to a large canopy … that means that any business traveler in Wisconsin can open their laptop and get wireless."