No foolin', optical is a good last-mile choice - Company Operations

Communications News, Dec, 2000

The advice-giving Motley Fool takes a suggestion on laser.

Providing financial advice and investment information comes naturally to the people who work for The Motley Fool (the Fool). Since its founding in 1993, The Motley Fool has published several books on personal investment, broadcasts a weekly radio show, writes a weekly newspaper column in 200 newspapers and maintains a popular website at www.fool.com focusing on financial education and offering business news, real-time stock quotes, research information, and often humorous investment advice columns.

As its business grew and operations began to rapidly expand, The Motley Fool quickly needed to find a low-cost, high-bandwidth solution to extend its Fast Ethernet LAN between Fool headquarters and a remote building located 640 meters away. With a large portion of the Fool's business conducted online, the company needed to use a secure and reliable form of high-speed data transmission between sites.

Located in Old Town Alexandria, VA, the Fool first examined a number of potential last-mile solutions, including dedicated fiber, leased lines and microwave systems. These broadband access choices, however, all suffered from serious deficiencies in meeting its application needs.

In an ideal world, the Fool would have used fiber-optic cable to extend its network. The cost of the reciprocity agreement was prohibitive, however, and pulling the fiber would have taken too much time.

The Fool also considered leasing an OC-3 line at a cost of more than $9,000 per month. Likewise, unlicensed high-speed microwave procurement and installation would have delayed operations for six weeks, at a cost of about $38,000 for the equipment alone.

Not sold on any of its initial options, the company suddenly found itself in the unusual position of advice seeker rather than advice giver, and turned to Integrated Fiber Optics in nearby Severna Park, MD, for guidance on how to overcome its connectivity dilemma.

Integrated Fiber Optics offers custom, fiber-optic system design and system integration services to the aerospace, commercial and industrial markets. President John Moser investigated the Fool's particular needs and came to the conclusion that legacy last-mile solutions would not be sufficient to solve the Fool's last-mile problem.

During their research, Moser and Thomas Jones--the Fool's director of operations and projects--considered optical wireless transmission, also known as free-space laser communication, as a possible solution for the last-mile Fast Ethernet network extension. Although the technology is relatively new, it appeared to be a superior choice based on installation time, bandwidth capability and cost. Given these factors, Moser advised the Fool to invest in optical wireless communications equipment.

The Fool purchased the TerraLink 1000x optical wireless system from Optical Access Inc. (formally AstroTerra Corp.). The TerraLink 1000x provides protocol-independent, unlicensed transmission with data rates of up to 155 Mbps, at distances up to one kilometer. Because the invisible beam of light is very narrow, the transmission is impossible to intercept and, thus, very secure. In addition, the links could be installed and operating on the rooftops of the Fool's buildings within a matter of hours.

The total cost of the solution, including preparation of both buildings, was approximately $26,000. The return on investment was less than three months when compared with leased-line options.

"The concept of optical wireless was an easy sell to the board of directors," notes Jones. "Since we had line-of-sight, the fast payoff, and quick installation and service, made optical wireless the obvious choice."

Before the systems were installed, a site survey was performed to ensure proper installation and operation of the TerraLink 1000x. Important considerations included finding clear line-of-sight, stable mounting platforms and adequate access to the units.

Once the site survey was completed, rooftop locations were laid out for the TerraLink units. Weatherproof electrical outlets were installed and fiber was run from the switching room to the rooftop. With the fiber in place, it only took a few short hours for Moser and his crew to install the TerraLink units. "By ensuring that the site survey was thorough and accurate, installing the systems was a breeze," comments Moser.

OpticalAccess' optical wireless solution is performing well in a variety of conditions, and has provided The Motley Fool with reliable last-mile access at a lower cost than traditional connectivity solutions. In fact, a second link is being installed as hardware backup for a secondary application. According to Moser, The Motley Fool will only consider expanding to buildings with a clear line of sight to its headquarters.

www.astroterra.com

Circle 261 for more information from Optical Access