DBI pushes fiber-optics to keep downtown desirable for business

BOULDER — Keeping downtown Boulder competitive as a place to do business wouldn’t seem too tough. A beautiful setting, beautiful people and dozens of shops and restaurants all make it a desirable place to do deals.

But technology is changing rapidly, and one group wants to make sure downtown keeps up with the times and in doing so, stays competitive. Downtown Boulder Inc., which represents center city merchants and businesses, is pushing installation of fiber-optic lines as a way to keep downtown desireable for business.

Jess Watkins, co-owner of Rocky Net, is a leader in DBI’s push for fiber. Watkins, as vice chairman of DBI’s Economic Vitality Committee, says the benefits of wiring downtown Boulder with fiber are threefold.

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First, fiber-optic cable allows businesses to transmit data at very high speeds, says Watkins. Second, fiber, unlike traditional copper wiring, allows for “an almost infinite ability to expand dial-tone service — you’ll never run out of lines.”

“The third and possibly the most important is the redundant quality of fiber. Fiber is laid out on redundant rings, and when you are on a fiber ring, you are assured that if the fiber is cut on either side of you, it doesn’t take your business down. Your connection, your dial-tone phones, everything continues to work,” Watkins explains. Phone outages become extremely rare, even a thing of the past.

Much of downtown phone service is still on copper cabling laid by U S West. A notable exception is New Hope Communications, says Robin Foreman, regional sales manager for ICG Telecommunications. ICG has installed fiber-optic lines in a number of locations in Boulder.

She admits installing fiber is “quite expensive; it’s very capital intensive.” And Foreman and Watkins agree that, at present, few businesses require the speed and bandwidth fiber-optic lines provide. But that is quickly changing, and new construction in places like Interlocken and the Lafayette Tech Center feature fiber-optic lines.

Foreman claims the downtown Boulder area is “losing a lot of business to Interlocken, to Colorado Tech Center, the new Lafayette Tech Center … because they do have fiber.” Installation of fiber wiring, she says, will “keep people in downtown Boulder.”

“I think that it is a given that it’s important” for downtown to be wired with fiber, says Molly Winter of the city’s Downtown and University Hill Management Division. “It’s important to have the infrastructure there to provide access; it’s essential in maintaining high-quality office space.”

The ultimate goal of DBI is having fiber connectivity available to “every commercial business” in downtown, says Watkins. To that end, DBI is in talks with the city on ways to encourage more installation of fiber. Such discussions are in the “very early stages,” he says.

Watkins says as Public Service replaces gas mains in parts of downtown, DBI is laying empty conduit alongside those lines. Some day that conduit will carry fiber-optic lines. However, Watkins concedes, that “we know we’re never going to be able to complete the whole network for downtown Boulder just waiting for a trench to open. Ultimately there will be a missing link or two that will have to be done as a stand-alone construction project.”

“We’re trying to be proactive,” adds Watkins. “Boulder is near zero in space availability, at all-time high lease rates … but it’s not going to last unless we keep the infrastructure” competitive, says Watkins.