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Learning about the capabilities of the telecommunications infrastructure — what it can do — is more important than learning about its physical composition. Keep in mind that only a few telecommunications networks, such as telephone networks, extend directly to most end users. Others require connection at a distant point. For example, many Internet users access the Internet indirectly through the telephone network. Identify which networks you can readily and economically access.
Two Local Approaches
The small city of Glasgow, Kentucky, is fortunate to have an Electric Plant Board (EPB) (municipal electric company) that, in the late 1980s, boldly developed an advanced public telecommunications network. The EPB, though originally looking for a way to transmit information in a city-wide electricity demand management system, realized that the same wires could also support a cable television system.
According to the EPB: “One lane of our ‘highway’ carries telemetry and commands that the electric utility uses to operate its distribution and transmission system. Other lanes carry meter readings from electric and other utility meters and commands to control capacitor banks and outdoor lighting installations. Some of the highway is used to provide a competitive cable television service and a competitive telephone system.” In addition, the city-wide network connects all of the K-12 classrooms, city agencies, utilities, and a growing number of homes and businesses.
The Electric Plant Board has also helped foster cooperative telecommunications ventures. For example, the EPB saw that the cable infrastructure could allow for the development of a shared geographic information system (GIS). This system would benefit not just the city government, but the county government, school district, water agency, and regional rural electric cooperative. These organizations, realizing their common interest, shared the cost of developing the GIS. The GIS database is now also available for a subscription fee to any computer user connected through the EPB’s cable infrastructure. …
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