• E-mail
• Print
• Comment
• Font Size
• Digg
• del.icio.us
• Discuss article

SBC Communications Using Pabst Farms Developments to Test Fiber Optic Lines

Posted on: Monday, 16 August 2004, 06:00 CDT

SBC Communications is using new developments at Pabst Farms to field test its plans to run fiber optic communication lines directly to houses and business buildings.

The people inquiring about Pabst Farms are inquiring about it all the time, said Bronson Haase, president of Pabst Farms Equity Ventures. It is technologically the most complete and advanced that there is today. It's a showplace for SBC, is what it amounts to.

Fiber optic communication lines can carry more digital information faster than other technologies, so it works better for video conferencing or companies that receive or transmit lots of data.

SBC and other communications companies have added fiber optic lines to their core networks for more than a decade, said SBC spokesman Wes Warnock. However, SBC has long wished to run fiber optic lines directly into their customers' buildings, and it is giving the idea its first widespread application at Pabst Farms.

It just made sense for us to get in there on the ground floor, Warnock said. We have to lay something in the ground anyway, why not also put fiber in the ground all the way to the customers' homes?

Part of Parade of Homes

The company is still refining the technology to bring it into mass use. Warnock said SBC wants to see more regulatory clarity to determine which telecommunications companies could use the lines once they are installed.

SBC ran fiber optics to all of the new houses in the Pabst Farms Eastlake Village subdivision development, which is part of the Metropolitan Builders Association of Greater Milwaukee 2004 Parade of Homes. Any new development in Pabst Farms could be linked with fiber optics before construction is complete, Haase said.

Haase said the houses would also showcase a new product from General Electric Security. General Electric is installing outlets throughout the houses, which will link to a cabinet in the basement. Residents can plug hardware into the cabinet for things such as baby monitoring cameras, Internet connections or audio equipment and then use the equipment in any room that has an outlet.

The fiber optic lines would also be a boon to two developments that Pabst Farms is trying to land - a new Aurora Health Care medical center and an institution for state universities to share information. Haase said that for years, colleges in Wisconsin have sought an accessible academic hub for professors and researchers to gather physically or through communication lines to trade ideas. Pabst Farms is trying to convince education institutions that it has the right physical location and infrastructure to be that hub.

Fiber optics could help Aurora send and receive medical records more quickly and grant universities teleconferencing with reception as good as a television's.

Businesses will be very interested in it if it has to transmit high loads of data, he said. It's very reliable. It's very high speed, and it can handle a high amount of volume.

More News in this Category