Fiber in the home thanks to Tennessee's Tenvera

Tennessee isn't exactly known for being the most wired place in the world, but an 18-month startup from Franklin, Tennessee -- a small wealthy town 20 miles south of Nashville (between Memphis and Knoxville) -- may soon change that. This fall, Tenvera will release its fiber in the home (FITH) product, called "System 5" (compare that to Category 5), which will be shown off at the CEDIA conference in Denver in a few weeks. This new technology blows current copper wiring out of the water and according to the company's COO, Tim Akers, will provide "virtually unlimited bandwidth" within new homes. FITH takes over where fiber to the home stops, and brings immense speed to your home's data infrastructure. System 5 is currently being installed in a housing development in a neighboring town, and promises to replace data and phone lines with FITH lines. Akers also told The Tennessean that a FITH outlet can be changed to accomodate phone or data via the quick swap of an outlet card, well after the home has been built. Tenvera is currently pricing its product at two to three percent of the total building cost of a home, or about $12,000 for a $400,000 home. Now how do we get this in the rest of the country?

[Via Talkabout:CEDIA]

[Ben @ Aug 31st 2006 8:51AM]

Just about every town is between Memphis and Knoxville. They are on opposite sides of the state.

[B @ Aug 31st 2006 8:53AM]

Geographically you're correct about Franklin, but more importantly is it's a very wealthy suburb just south of Nashville. Franklin is home to many of Country Music's finest (saw Keith Urban with wife Nicole not too long ago) and it's also home to the new Nissan USA HQ as it's relocating from Cali. Many other companies have offices there, such as Motorola, Alcatel and others.

[Alex Hillman @ Aug 31st 2006 9:09AM]

not fair that these suburban and rural areas get it before more developed city-areas. not fair not fair! *temper tantrum*

[jah @ Aug 31st 2006 9:23AM]

Sounds like Tim Akers has been reading up on Verizon's FiOS project and decided that it's easier to emulate than innovate.

[Garrett @ Aug 31st 2006 9:29AM]

@ Alex Hilman,

Actually this is a bit of a major city area. Franklin is just outside of the Nashville-metro area (I guess technically this is a suburb) but it is very hard to distinguish between the city of Nashville and the suburbs surrounding it as they all tend to blend together without a major transition. And I really have to ask if they even bothered to look at a TN map before stating it is between Knoxville and Memphis, because that encompasses the entire freaking state! Not to mention that Nashville is actually the capital city and I wouldn't call Franklin a small town at all...

[Tyler Hall @ Aug 31st 2006 9:31AM]

Saying Franklin is between Memphis and Knoxville is like saying Kansas is between California and Maine. Franklin is wealthy, small town twenty minutes south of Nashville.

[Justin Buck @ Aug 31st 2006 9:32AM]

Two of my old roomates are from Franklin. Its not a small town and its one of the fastest growing cities in the state and yes everyone there is really wealthy.

Tennesse has more fiber optics than anywhere else in the nation. Most of the country's Telemarketing centers and call centers for major country are actaully further east in the state in the Tri-Citie Area as it is all fiber optic to handle the massive call volumes. Although it is not yet avaiable to residents there as it is in Franklin.

Tennessee is the nation leader as far as set the future groundwork for fiber optics in the rest of the country.

[xbox360dsPSP @ Aug 31st 2006 9:41AM]

Some of us are very fortunate to already have fiber to the home -- Verizon FiOS. 15Mbit goodness for $44.95/month. Low latency and zippy!

[ndtinker @ Aug 31st 2006 9:50AM]

I live in Jackson, TN (2 hours west of Nashville) and have fiber internet to my house through JEA. It's a 6mb connection but you can get up to 10 now.

http://www.jaxenergy.com/broadband/

[Shunnabunich @ Aug 31st 2006 9:54AM]

Is this the Revenge of the FITH?


(Sorry, HAD to)

[tiuk @ Aug 31st 2006 9:56AM]

Wow guys, so Cyrus made a mistake, we get the picture. Having ten people jump down his throat about how great Franklin is has practically no bearing on the story.

[dave-o @ Aug 31st 2006 10:24AM]

oh gee, now i can finally install that 10 gig ethernet ring in my house that I've been meaning to get to.

talk about overkill. i dont see any carrier offering OC-192/10GigE services to individual homes in the next decade, so tell me again why I need fiber inside my home network?

[Cyrus Farivar @ Aug 31st 2006 10:43AM]

Sorry, I guess when I looked it up on Google Maps the first time, I focused on Knoxville/Memphis. (I'm a California native, myself.) Thanks for the suggestion -- the entry's been fixed.

[Tnriverfish @ Aug 31st 2006 10:56AM]

Yea Franklin!

[CJ @ Aug 31st 2006 11:16AM]

I would be happy when I can get 100Mbps UP and Down to the house that would be I deal for all my Internet needs at the moment... but alas verizon FIOS only doing 30/5 to the house so it will have to do for now :-(

[Zach @ Aug 31st 2006 11:25AM]

Out in Utah several cities have or are in the process of running fiber to every home and business within the city limits. They call it UTOPIA (Utah Telecommunication Open Infrastructure Agency) the fiber infrastructure is owned by each city and the lines are leased to independent ISP's for services. It sounds comparable to Verizon's FIOS 15mbps up/down residential and 100 up/down for business.

[Liosandro @ Aug 31st 2006 11:32AM]

Fiber optics internet. We have it since YEARS in most of the italian cities.
One of the few things wich we are ahead in technology.
http://www.iplay3.com/references/pdfs/fastweb_customerprofile_ENV410.pdf#search=%22fastweb%20fiber%20optics%22

I have unlimited urban phone calls, tv on demand, and unlimited internet 10mbps upload/download for about 90 bucks/mo.

Ciao
Ale

[glacia00 @ Aug 31st 2006 11:39AM]

I've been running a 2.5Gb/s network in my house for years. Unfortunately that's inside only and only because I design FO networking equipment.

And now that we're designing 40Gb/s ports we've been waiting for consumer demand for more speed & BW. Unfortunatly most people simply don't seem to want it. 10 years ago we were predicting everyone would have a Gb connection by now. But the equipment has been sitting & waiting for consumer demand.

[Ben @ Aug 31st 2006 11:45AM]

Cyrus Farivar

Heh no need to appologize for getting Geography wrong.

Neat article though. I hope more cities start doing this...

[Chris @ Aug 31st 2006 12:46PM]

$15,000 for a fiber home?? please... purchase a couple of spools of this for uner $1,000:

2 x Coax

http://www.smarthome.com/8682.html

[ken @ Aug 31st 2006 12:48PM]

so i think we need to have an engadget reader meetup in franklin for us who live their!!!!

[tk. @ Aug 31st 2006 1:33PM]

BUT...

do they have hot asians?

that's the real question here people.

[Tooley @ Aug 31st 2006 3:58PM]

Ha, this is awesome, I live in the heart of Franklin.
And this really surprises me.

[Matt @ Aug 31st 2006 10:32PM]

yay Franklin! i'm glad Tennessee was mentioned outside of some bland redneck joke. Middle Tennessee is a huge area of music, as well as health care. In fact, Kieth Urban and Nicole Kidman are my neighbors. no joke. but enough Tennessee fanboi-ing, I can't wait for the fiber internet to come to my home!

[Bill @ Sep 1st 2006 2:37AM]

go Vols!

[l0ne @ Sep 1st 2006 2:38AM]

20 Mbit cheap fiber-in-the-home with telephone and IPTV since 2000: http://www.fastweb.it/. (Italy only.)

[Justin @ Sep 1st 2006 5:37PM]

10/15/30 Mbits down?

Well i must be really getting a deal with Time Warner, oh I mean Comcast, where I'm getting about 200Kb down. Even my upload speed is faster at times. Someone needs to roll out some fiber in my area.

[Mark @ Sep 2nd 2006 8:32AM]

Just remember...Tennessee is home of Al Gore...and he invented the internet. No wonder why they got this.

[Micah @ Oct 31st 2006 4:45AM]

You should check your geography, saying Franklin is between Memphis and Knoxville is like saying a Lagrangian point satellite of the Sun/Earth system such as the SOHO is located between the Earth and Sun. So... as an astrophysicist would give proper coordinates and distances as to the exact location of this satellite, you should give - in a similar manner - exact coordinates and distances to this suburban town near Nashville.

[terry @ Nov 22nd 2006 9:35AM]

It figures Franklin would get it going first. I hate Franklin. When you drive through you are dodging pampered princesses in their tractor trailor sized SUVs or the illegal aliens who are doing work at all their homes. I don't think a 23 year old woman who has never worked a day in her life who drives a hummer h1 should have faster connections than everyone around them. We work for a living in IT and need the speed.

[knedbal @ Oct 8th 2007 9:18AM]

Hey FITH fans

I'm a system integrator looking for practical info on how to get this system into 70 homes. I have a closed community going up with metro ethernet. I'm designing a GPON or PON for them and i need some quick info. If anyone is a professional shoot me an email.

[e-mail]

[Tarry @ Aug 12th 2008 2:56AM]

This is great news!

http://www.chasetheglow.com