"It's the highway of today," she said, "and what Carroll County is doing is building for itself so it can control [the highway], and so it's never limited in terms of what it can do on that highway."
DSL and cable modems move one and two megabytes a second, respectively, Hovis said, but fiber technology has the potential to transmit information 1,000 times faster, and even more rapidly as electronics improve.
Carroll's network is scheduled to be completed in spring 2010, but fiber will be put to use immediately after it's in place, said Mark Ripper, chief information officer for county government.
The new technology will save the county money, Ripper said.
Not having to pay monthly fees of between $200 and $1,000 for each of the current Internet and phone connections will be a "huge cost savings," Ripper said, adding that an estimated $900,000 per year in monthly charges would no longer go to companies such as Verizon or Comcast.
Patti Davis, director of network and technology services for Carroll Community College, said the school has seen savings, forsaking one monthly circuit payment for fiber, and connecting a remote location for an education program with a combination of fiber and cable.
"It's going to pay for itself," said Gary Davis, who is also the school system's chief information officer, of the $7.3 million project.
There are maintenance costs for fiber, such as help desks for tracking calls of line breaks or failing equipment, said Bill Wheeler, chief of information systems in Harford County, where a bigger network, expanding on Bel Air's fiber, is under way.
"You can't look at everything on return of investment," Wheeler said, adding that some benefits are based on future growth.
In Carroll, the members of the Public Network - representatives of the government, community college and the school and library systems - point to their relatively unconventional collaboration as a key factor.
"Instead of doing redundant things, we're working together," Gary Davis said. He pointed to the new backup data center the Public Network entities plan to share.
Their connection will enable the agencies to tap into each other's resources. Surveillance systems, for example, could be integrated, giving police forces easier access to them, Patti Davis said.
Both see potential for partnerships between the school system and college, linking students to higher-level classes or to courses they normally wouldn't be able to take because of low enrollment.
