Melissa Caliger
MUSCATINE, Iowa — Imagine Internet speeds capable of downloading 12 TV shows, 900 songs and one High Definition movie in 36 seconds.
Muscatine Power and Water officials say it is possible and they have a plan to make surfing the web a better experience by increasing Internet speeds and a switch from coaxial cable wiring to lightning-fast fiber-optic cable by the end of 2017.
In April, all residential and business class MPW MachLink Internet subscribers will be bumped up from their current service to the next level of internet speed — at least doubling their current speed — at no additional charge. And that is just the start of the path to the fastest internet available. In 2017, all MPW customers will be converted to one gigabit fiber wiring though the municipal utility’s Fiber to the Home project.
“A one gigabit fiber connection is around 200 times faster than our most popular current residential speed and 1,000 times faster than a one megabit DSL connection,” said Erika Cox, MPW employee and community relations director. “So if you think what you have now is fast, just wait until you experience fiber!”
About Mark Milliman
Mark Milliman is a Principal Consultant at Inphotonics Research driving the adoption and assisting local governments to plan, build, operate, and lease access open-access municipal broadband networks. Additionally, he works with entrepreneurs and venture capitalists to increase the value of their intellectual capital through the creation of strategic product plans and execution of innovative marketing strategies. With more than 22 years of experience in the telecommunications industry that began at AT&T Bell Laboratories, Mark has built fiber, cable, and wireless networks around the world to deliver voice, video, and data services. His thorough knowledge of all aspects of service delivery from content creation to the design, operation, and management of the network is utilized by carriers and equipment manufacturers. Mark conceived and developed one of the industry's first multi-service provisioning platform and is multiple patent holder. He is active in the IEEE as a senior member. Mark received his B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Iowa State University and M.S. in Electrical Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University.
