Clear Lake Shores, TX - Thursday, April 16, 2020 - In an effort to enhance the city’s technology infrastructure, the Clear Lake Shores Economic Development Corporation is investigating options for bringing fiber-optic connectivity to CLS in addition to our current DSL and cable services.
Fiber-optic internet or “fiber to the door,” can be easily ten times as fast as a standard cable connection over much longer distances than traditional copper-based technologies such as DSL and cable. This will provide significantly better connectivity to our businesses and residents at a price that is competitive with existing services.
Since fiber-optic is the state-of-the-art technology for internet service delivery, many cities are now moving from copper-based technologies to fiber. The EDC wants to ensure that Clear Lake Shores is equipped with the best available infrastructure to effectively serve existing residents and businesses and to attract future residents and businesses who see reliable, high-speed internet service as essential to their quality of life and/or the viability of their business.
Benefits of fiber-optic connectivity
Speed
Fiber-optic networks can deliver speeds up to 1 Gpbs (1000 Mbps). During periods of high demand for Internet access, your home or business connectivity should not be impacted.
Reliability and signal strength
Fiber-optic internet is less susceptible to inclement weather conditions. In addition, the signal strength of fiber-optic Internet does not degrade as quickly over distance.
Bandwidth
Fiber-optic bandwidth is higher. Our residents and businesses should not see any speed impact during activities such as web conferencing, streaming high definition videos, file sharing, etc.
Latency
Bandwidth is important, but the perceived speed will depend on the latency. Latency is the time it takes to process data from your computer to the internet and back. Latency is measured in milliseconds, and the closer your latency is to zero, the better.
The average latency experience with our current DSL and cable services is 11 milliseconds or more, while fiber-optic experiences an average latency of <0.1milliseconds. Because fiber-optics eliminates many latency issues, users shouldn’t have problems downloading or uploading big files.
The biggest challenge associated with fiber-optic service is the financial installation investment. Building a fiber network requires laying all new fiber optic cable, which can be buried in the ground or installed, on utility poles. Installation in Clear Lake Shores; however, will require fiber cables to go in the ground as there isn’t sufficient height distance available on current poles. EDC is currently working with different fiber-optic providers that are interested in offering their service in Clear Lake Shores with a fair installation cost. Although the cost of burying the fiber optic cable is higher than running cables on the existing utility poles, an underground installation is substantially more “storm-proof” than cables on the utility poles.
“We want to make sure our community benefits from this new technology,” EDC Director Thomas Haaland said. “Many residents work remotely and our businesses rely on fast connectivity to provide better customer service. Bringing this new infrastructure will definitely be a major step forward in our economic growth.”
WE NEED YOUR INPUT!
The EDC is looking for feedback from our community to ensure that this new technology infrastructure will effectively serve existing residents and businesses and attract future residents.
Please send your questions, comments and feedback to: haaland.clsedc@gmail.com.