Subject: [NEXTEL-1] A Plan for Wireless Telecommunications Network

From: [email-masked]
Date: Mon, 26 Apr 2004 00:33:18 -0400

A Plan for Wireless Telecommunications Network

By JOHN HOLUSHA

April 25, 2004

A WIRELESS telecommunications system that would keep
Lower Manhattan's computers and phones connected with
the rest of the world in the event of a major disruption downtown
has been proposed by officials of the Alliance for Downtown
New York. (http://www.downtownny.com/)

The proposed system would send signals through the air, rather
than through fiber-optic cables or copper wires and would be the
first such system in a central business district in the country,
according to executives of the alliance, the downtown business
improvement group.

The signals would be sent to switching centers in Manhattan
and some other location, probably in New Jersey, to ensure
that if there is damage in one location, connections would be
maintained through the links to other centers.

The Lower Manhattan Wireless Redundancy System
http://www.citylimits.org/content/articles/articleView.cfm?articlenumber=993
is intended to carry data, like stock and bond trading and banking
transactions, but could be used for voice communications, if necessary,
they said.

However, the system requires an investment of $10 million in public
money to install the basic components - roof-top antennas and the
structure to keep them in place.

The system and other initiatives are part of a strategy by the alliance
to use communications technology to increase the attractiveness of
the area to small and medium-size companies that want reliable
connections, but cannot afford to develop systems on their own.

The issue of reliability is an important one downtown because the
Sept. 11 attack cut off many companies, even those who had multiple
carriers, because all their wires connected at 140 West Street, which
was heavily damaged.

"We looked at what Merrill Lynch and other large companies did to
develop private networks," after the World Trade Center attack, said
John J. Gilbert, the executive vice president of Rudin Management
and chairman of a committee that studied the communications problem
and recommended the new backup system.

He said they relied on high speed data transmission through the air,
which is called broadband wireless, to locations outside the city to
ensure that their operations remain connected, regardless of the
emergency.

"Broadband wireless is here," Mr. Gilbert said. "The question is,
how do we provide access to small and medium-size business?
As we rebuild the telecommunications system downtown, we do
not want to do it as it was; we want to do it as it should be."

Shirley Jaffe, vice president of economic development for the
alliance, said the group had been making presentations to the
city, the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation and other
institutions of government to secure the financing needed to
build the basic system, which could be used by multiple telephone
companies. Because of this, no single telephone company is willing
to make the investment. "It has a lot of support from business, but we
still need an entity of government to pay for it," she said.

With billions being spend to rebuild downtown, Ms. Jaffe said,
"$10 million is a relatively modest amount of money."

She added, "We could be in operation within six months, and it
would have a major positive impact in the short term."

The system would cover all of Lower Manhattan by installing antennas
and related equipment on five of the tallest buildings in the area,
which
are called hubs. Planners said just about every office in the area would
be able to "see" one of the hubs, either through a window or by a common
antenna operated by the landlord near the top of a building.

The hubs would collect the communications signals and transmit them to
what is known as a Point of Presence, or POP, which is a large switching
location connected by various types of links - wires, fiber-optic cables
and microwave links - to national and international telecommunications
networks. The transmission would be to POP's in multiple locations to
ensure
reliability.

The transmissions would use both laser light in the not-visible infrared
wavelengths and radio microwaves to add to reliability, Mr. Gilbert
said.
He said using both compensated for light's inability to penetrate fog
and
the tendency of microwave beams to spread out and grow unfocused.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/25/realestate/25COMM.html

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