Sandoval, LambdaRail Near Deal

Begin forwarded message:

From: Dewayne Hendricks <[email protected]>
Date: January 5, 2007 7:36:34 AM EST
To: Dewayne-Net Technology List <[email protected]>
Subject: [Dewayne-Net] Sandoval, LambdaRail Near Deal
Reply-To: [email protected]

Sandoval, LambdaRail Near Deal

<http://www.tmcnet.com/usubmit/2006/12/19/2179007.htm>

(Albuquerque Journal (NM) Dec. 19--Sandoval County is close to signing a
contract with the organization that oversees a super high speed national
data network.

Access to the National LambdaRail, a consortium of 20 corporations and
universities -- including three New Mexico universities -- will give
communities in Sandoval County opportunities for distance learning and
telemedicine at speeds dozens of times faster than currently possible  
with
commercial Internet.

"It's a pretty large alphabet soup of capabilities," said Dewayne
Hendricks, CEO of the Fremont, Calif .-based Dandin Group.

Hendricks is in charge of establishing infrastructure for Sandoval
Broadband, the company creating the county's own high speed Internet
network.

Sandoval County and New Mexico National LambdaRail have agreed on the
terms and conditions for the county's access to the network at a
connection point in Albuquerque, overseen by the University of New  
Mexico,
said Gary Bauerschmidt, associate director of information technology
services for UNM.

New Mexico LambdaRail is the nonprofit organization created by UNM, New
Mexico Tech and New Mexico State University to administer the National
LambdaRail contract.

Sandoval County will be the first outside organization to sign up for
access. The cost will be $50,000 annually, Bauerschmidt said.

A date for the contract signing has not been set, according to  
Hendricks.
But he characterized the signing as "a formality."

"We're moving ahead with connecting up," Hendricks said.

Sandoval Broadband has spent nearly $100,000 building infrastructure --
getting rights of way, digging trenches and laying fiber -- from its
Downtown Albuquerque broadband center at 505 Marquette NW (the Compass
Bank building) to the UNM LambdaRail connection point at 104 Gold SE.

It signed a deal last summer to buy broadband capacity from IXNM, which
owns a fiber network headquartered at 505 Marquette.

Sandoval Broadband uses microwave antennas mounted on the roof of the  
bank
building to transmit data to the Sandoval County Courthouse in  
Bernalillo.

Sandoval County has said it wants to create the network to provide
affordable high speed Internet access to schools, emergency services and
municipal offices in underserved communities and rural areas.





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