Best Practices and Strategies for Broadband Deployment - Adoption, Usage, and Global Impact of Broadband Technologies - page 138

tions in 22 counties across Northern Ohio.
The fibre network deployment has been
leveraged by government and nonprofits to
jumpstart new investment, improve health-
care, education, and engage thousands of
area leaders in collaboration over regional
economic development.
• BVU OptiNet (Bristol Virginia, US,
www.bvu-optinet.com): Optinet is recog-
nised as Broadband Fibre Network of
Year in US by the National Association of
Telecommunications Officers and Advisors
(NATOA). OptiNet, which extends from
Bristol Virginia approximately 850 miles
through eight Southwest Virginia counties,
was recognised for “pioneering commu-
nity fibre to the home and for demonstrat-
ing how true broadband can bring jobs and
economic development to rural America.”
Bristol Virginia Utilities (BVU) is a city-
owned public utility that provides electric,
water, wastewater, cable and advanced
fibre-optic broadband services to custom-
ers in a 125-square-mile area that includes
Bristol, Abingdon and Washington County.
In 2003, BVU became the first municipal
entity in the United States to build and suc-
cessfully maintain a fibre-to-the-premises
broadband network offering phone, cable
and data services.
• blizznet (Vienna, Austria, http://www.
wienenergie.at): In the field of telecom-
munications, the Wien Energie subsidiary
Wien Energie Wienstrom offers Vienna's
extra broadband network (blizznet), which
is one of the most modern and fastest
broadband fibre optic networks in Europe.
Around 12,800 households spread across
nine districts in Vienna are currently con-
nected to blizznet. Consequently, the cur-
rent network consists of more than 1,400
km of fibre optic cables - a network which
is constantly being expanded. Moreover,
there are 2,200 km of existing empty piping

available to expand the network. blizznet
offers top-level quality for all (Internet ac-
cess, TV, telephone, security, data protec-
tion and gaming) supporting high-speeds
(100 mbps, upload and download).
• TRE-FOR (East Jutland, Denmark): TRE-
FOR is a multi-utility (for water supply,
district heating, electricity and broadband
telecom) serving an area of about 28km
radius in East Jutland, Denmark. There
are three principal towns - Fredericia,
Kolding, and Vejle - and about 300,000
customers. The company is organized as
a cooperative and is essentially owned by
its customers, who can be elected to the
115-member Stakeholders' Committee,
which, among other things, helps to set
strategic priorities and directions. TRE-
FOR has crafted a role for itself as a mid-
dleman between its customers and service
providers. It's rolling out fibre-to-the-
home (FTTH) and Ethernet infrastructure,
offering customers a self-service portal
for them to order services, and providing
a platform that makes it easy for third par-
ties to provide those services. TRE-FOR is
not taking on any of the risky business of
guessing what applications will prove a hit
with its customers. It is still in the utility
business, where investments can be amor-
tized over a long period, and thus it's able
to keep a lid on costs. At the same time, it's
created an environment that encourages in-
novation and competition among service
providers so that its customers (who are
also its shareholders) get a wide choice of
offerings at low prices. The TRE-FOR net-
work is based on a core-plus-aggregation
layer. The core is a dual 5-node redundant
IP/MPLS backbone using routers with
10-Gigabit Ethernet interfaces.