A key task for Community Technology Advisors is to inventory and analyze the current telecommunications infrastructure and services in Eden Prairie. We have been interviewing providers and are getting a pretty clear picture.  At our last task force meeting, Comcast and Time Warner Telecom made presentations to the group about their current and planned services.
Time Warner Telecom is a Competitive Local Exchange Carrier serving business clients in Eden Prairie. They are co-located in the Qwest Eden Prairie Central Office and use their own fiber network and Qwest facilities to reach their end customers. Time Warner Telecom (not to be confused with the former cable TV company) is working to reach more customers with their own fiber network. The company shared maps of its fiber network and it reaches a good share of Eden Prairie’s prime business areas.
Comcast offers almost 100 percent coverage of Eden Prairie’s residential areas and talked about its new emphasis on serving business with a more attractive pricing strategy for extending its network to business locations. Comcast has a fiber to the node network with each node serving between 300 and 600 customers. They spent a good deal of time talking about new technologies that will enable it to provide Internet speeds of up to 100 Mbps to customers, possibly within the next year. Comcast gave task force members a peak at its network map but was unwilling to provide many details about what information was displayed there nor were they willing to provide the community with a map to keep and examine.
Task force members had good questions for both providers about their current services and their plans for the future. It was an interesting meeting. Qwest is scheduled to present at the next task force meeting in August.
