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MARQUETTE -- The Marquette Board of Light and Power and Northern Michigan University are teaming up for what both parties say is an exchange of the university's educational access network, or EAN, for the use of fiber cables.
Eric Smith, director of broadcasting and audio-visual services at NMU, discussed the university's goal to provide broadband access throughout the Upper Peninsula at the BLP's regular meeting May 8. He explained that NMU received permission from the Federal Communications Commission to partner with local units of government, public utilities, or people who might benefit from having access to the network.
NMU is requesting use of some of the BLP's fiber-optical cables to help NMU expand its services. The partnership will give the BLP access to connections they currently don't have, especially in remote areas, Smith said.
"In exchange for that broadway service that we're providing for the education consumers at the university, we're offering the Marquette Board of Light and Power the option of using that broadway service," he said. "It's essentially a one-for-one trade. In exchange for the fiber cable, we would offer the (MBLP) access to our infrastructure."
Smith explained that what used to be the university's WiMax service "has grown and warped into what we call LTE -- and rather than going into a lengthy discussion of why LTE versus WiMax, it's simply just a technology change that's caused us to make that jump."
WiMax was first launched around 10 years ago and was designed primarily to offer NMU students internet access while they were away from campus. LTE offers internet services on a larger scale throughout the U.P. to community members and NMU partners as well as students.
"As we began to grow and develop the service, we learned that it was more than just university students that could benefit from this," Smith said. "Along with that has come the logistics of actually providing the service and this is a full-blown wireless mobile-fixed broadband network that the university has embarked on and it uses commercial-grade (and) carrier-grade equipment to provide the service. What the university has been doing is hardening its infrastructure -- we want a service that's reliable, that matches what you'd expect from a carrier services and in order to do that we need infrastructure to make that happen."
By using a fiber networking infrastructure that the BLP installed a number of years ago, Smith said it would allow the university to "ride on that backbone network, if you will, and provide us with a broadband that we need to be able to get internet service out to the education users."
"Where we have LTE services, your network would be available in those locations. What we're talking about is overlaying … the Marquette Board of Light and Power network on top of or alongside the NMU network. It allows you to just ride on that common carrier so that you can access your services just as you were here in your own building," Smith told BLP board members.
Tom Carpenter, executive director of BLP, said the partnership is a win for both parties.
"From our perspective, we have had this fiber … for about 15 years. There's 36 strands of fiber and we have a couple extra that we can provide for this purpose," he said.
Carpenter said access to the broadband services would make operations more efficient because they would be able to monitor remote areas and that there are hydro-facilities the BLP currently doesn't have access to right now.
With access to the network, Carpenter said, the BLP would be able to put cameras near the Tourist Park plant and wouldn't have to run any fibers to that, on top of numerous other matters.
BLP chairman Tom Tourville commended Smith and explained that the collaborations between both institutions not only benefits them but the community as well.
Currently, NMU's LTE network is located mostly throughout the central U.P. However, NMU's plan is to make the network available throughout the entire U.P.
For more information about EAN, visit www.nmu.edu/ean.
Jaymie Depew can be reached at 906-228-2500, ext. 206. Her email address is jdepew@miningjournal.net.