Name selected for fiber-optic network

Fibrant logo

By Shelley Smithssmith@salisburypost.com

Salisburians can now add "fibrant" to their vocabulary, and should get used to seeing it, saying it and hearing about it a lot in the coming months.

Fibrant is Fiber To The Home's official title, with the slogan, "Make life brilliant."

Fibrant will be launched in August, offering television, Internet and telephone services to all residents of Salisbury.

Instead of copper coaxial metal cables, Fibrant uses thin glass strands that use light beams to transmit data. Data travels at the speed of light, and there is no limit to the amount of data transmitted.

"The quality of the product will be faster, period," said Len Clark, sales and marketing manager for Fibrant. "Copper coaxial cable cannot handle the amount of information that will come off the Internet in the next few years.

"High Definition, 3-D movies, movie downloads — cable just can't handle it."

Barry King, service delivery manager for Fibrant, said that the technology is so advanced, today's televisions and computers will take more than 20 years to reach the full potential that fiber optics offers.

"There will be no restrictions to fiber for many years to come," he said.

Clark said the forecast for fiber in the future was mind boggling.

"Speeds will get faster and faster, but fiber cables won't change," he said.

According to Clark, Ericsson — the software company Salisbury is using — is working on technology that will change life as we know it.

Clark gave an example of watching a basketball game, while video conferencing with your mother in one corner of the television and your brother in the other, all discussing the game while watching it together.

He also said Ericsson is looking at mosaic technology, which will allow users to watch more than 12 screens at once.

At the same time you are conferencing with your mother and brother, or watching 12 stations at once, you can also be watching cameras located inside and outside your home or business, which will all be real-time videos.

"We've already had a couple of people who have moved to town because they knew it was coming," said Clark, who noted that a medical concierge company (virtual check-ups) has shown a lot of interest in Salisbury's fiber.

"You'll see people and businesses move here for that bandwidth," King said.

On March 16, the Federal Communications Commission released a National Broadband Plan, hoping to connect 100 million households to fiber optic networks by 2020.

On Feb. 10, Google announced its initiative to experiment with fiber, asking for trial locations across the U.S. As of Friday, (the deadline for requests from potential trail cities), Google received requests from more than 600 towns across the U.S., including Salisbury.

Clark and King sent the request to Google this week, but said they weren't getting their hopes up.

"Getting Google to come in is like hoping you win the lottery," Clark said.

The folks at Fibrant say Salisbury is what the company needs.

"The advantage of Google using us is we're the perfect place to start because we're almost ready to roll," Clark said. "Building a network could take two years to finish. In the Google world, two years is a long time for them to work on something."

"The way we're putting this infrastructure together, we are exactly what they're looking for," King said.

Fibrant is sending informational flyers out in water bills next week.For more information on Fibrant, visit http://salisburyftthblog.com/.