High-speed Internet service targets small businesses
Velocity Telephone’s fiber optic “Metro Ring” network in Eagan promises faster, more reliable service at affordable prices
by Erin Johnson
Dakota County Tribune
Eagan Mayor Mike Maguire talks with a Velocity Telephone official during a groundbreaking for the company’s project in Eagan. - Photo by Rick Orndorf
A local telecommunications provider is looking to offer a “self-healing” fiber network with faster, more reliable Internet service for small to mid-sized businesses.
Businesses in Eagan will be the first in the country to have access to the service, to be installed by Velocity Telephone, a Twin Cities telecommunications provider.
Velocity broke ground April 19 on the Eagan Community Fiber Network, which will cover part of the city’s northwest quadrant with plans to expand in the future.
The network will be the nation’s first “Metro Ring,” in which fiber-optic lines running to homes and businesses will form interconnected circular networks throughout the city.
Jim Hickle, president of Velocity, said fiber optic technology can provide Internet speeds up to 10 times faster than what’s currently available for smaller businesses.
Velocity is offering speeds up to one gigabyte, which is about 1,000 times faster than a traditional T1 line. He said his main competitors – including Qwest and Comcast – offer speeds of up to only 50 or 100 megabits per second.
Twin Cities telecommunications provider Velocity Telephone will begin offering fiber optic Internet service to parts of Eagan this summer with plans to expand throughout the city and beyond. According to Velocity, fiber networks offer speeds up to 10 times faster than what’s currently available in the south metro. - Photo by Rick Orndorf
“Those are the maximums,” he said. “Nobody’s found the maximum speed fiber can go at.”
Fiber also offers the same speed for uploading and downloading, he said.
The bigger corporations already have access to higher-speed service, but Velocity wants to make it accessible to smaller businesses by making it more affordable, Hickle said.
“This is the sweet spot for what we’re doing,” he said.
The connection speed offered by Velocity for $299 a month would cost a local business $1,200 a month from a different provider, he said.
And the fiber-optic lines themselves are more reliable than coaxial cable or copper, he said, because they are installed with more than one pathway into a business.
The redundant pathway means that even if a line gets cut, service doesn’t.
That kind of reliability is important to Todd Kerin, president of Machine Tool Supply in Eagan, and the Eagan fiber network’s first customer.
Kerin currently subscribes to DSL and T1 service through Qwest, which uses copper lines, and “it’s 20 to 30-year-old copper,” Kerin said.
He said when the opportunity arose to get fiber, he jumped at it.
“For me it’s not about the speed, it’s about the reliability, the redundancy,” he said. “Right now if someone cuts the copper, I’m down for a few hours or more.”
Kerin said reliability makes it easier for him to allow employees to work remotely, and he also likes the price.
“Overall when I look at the costs related to voice and data (services) I have now compared to the costs of voice and data with fiber, I will save money on fiber, along with getting the reliability and speed,” he said.
He also believes that if he decides to sell his building or move, having a fiber connection to the building will be “a big selling point.”
Machine Tool Supply is a distributor of industrial supplies. While Kerin said the fiber network won’t necessarily help grow his business, “it will help us become a lot more efficient.”
Velocity’s fiber offerings for businesses include voice, video, data and data back-up services. A hosted telephone system called a “virtual office” allows several different phones to be reached through one number. For instance, one of velocity’s clients who wants to be available to customers all the time can now be reached at his office, cell phone, home or cabin just by dialing one number.
“That’s a great tool for businesses,” Hickle said.
As businesses become more savvy about what they need, the language of technology has changed, said Ruthe Batulis, president of the Dakota County Regional Chamber of Commerce. These days there is more of an emphasis on speed and price and less on a specific company or product, she said.
“There are many, many small businesses that are operating out of folks’ basements that are doing global business, and it’s becoming even more important to have the speed and bandwidth needed for a variety of applications,” she said.
A technology survey of local businesses conducted by the DCR Chamber five years ago showed a variety of needs and desired costs. And while the bigger providers claim they already offer everything businesses need, it’s always good to have more competition, Batulis said.
“That will drive the market. We’ll start to see how having a different player in the marketplace will affect these businesses,” she said. “I think we’re entering into a new business model and a new era of understanding of the impact of speed and bandwidth at an affordable price.”
For more information, visit www.velocitytelephone.com/fiber.
Erin Johnson is at
erin.johnson@ecm-inc.com.
Even though this part of Eagan has gone fiber optic, let’s not forget that at the borders, one business over, they are on copper wire and the speeds there are those of copper. So, communications between those two, while fiber communications are great “within the wagon circle”, going to a copper wire is a bottle neck to the whole concept. If Velocity also partners with a fiber optic carrier with an even wider scope then this is very good indeed – especially when internet commerce is in play.