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From: rsmith@vms.macc.wisc.edu (Rusty Smith, MACC)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.lans
Subject: Re: broadband high speed networking between buildings
Message-ID: <2440@dogie.macc.wisc.edu>
Date: 19 Sep 89 14:36:21 GMT
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Distribution: usa
Organization: University of Wisconsin Academic Computing Center
Lines: 43

In article <4616@ursa-major.SPDCC.COM>, eli@spdcc.COM (Steve Elias) writes...

>In article <19661@mimsy.UUCP> chris@mimsy.UUCP (Chris Torek) writes:
>!i wrote:
>!!i'm not sure if 4 out of 5 networking cats would agree with
>!
>!I think they would---certainly so if they had experience with both
>!broadband and fiber:
>!
>!	a) broadband is slow.
> 
>	wrong.  10 Mbits/sec is not "slow", by today's standards.
> 
>!	b) broadband requires maintenance.
> 
>	yes.  and a large up-front fixed cost.  
> 
> 
>	surely, the market is moving towards FIBER FIBER FIBER!
>	but we've yet to see standardized Ethernet/Fiber products.
>	even the FDDI spec is incomplete...
> 
We have a large broadband system here. There are four trunks and the
longest is a cascade of 15 amplifiers. We have approxiamately 40 
Chipcom ethermodems on our network. The use 18 MHz of bandwidth, which
is 3 t.v. channels. This is not much bandwidth for a cable t.v. 
system. The problem with the Chipcoms is that they are "dumb" devices
with no way to manage or find when they drift and go into high errors.
We couple them with Dec LanBridges and manage the network through
statistics of the LanBridges performance. With a campus of 40k plus
students and multiple services the broadband system was the only one
that could meet our requirements at the time. To go between 2 
buildings it would much easier to install 2 Dec LanBridges with a
fiber interface on one side. There are 3 of these here on the 
Engineering campus to extend "backbone" presence to their other
buildings. They are reliable and easy to install. 
Broadband is not slow, but it does require maintenance and high 
installation costs. The fiber has low installation costs and no
real maintenance. That's my 2 cents worth. Hope it helps.

Rusty Smith			Internet:  rsmith@vms.macc.wisc.edu
MACC Data Communications	Bitnet:    rsmith@wiscmacc
(608)  263-6307			Univ. of Wisconsin @ Madison