Winston-Salem to connect departments with fiber optic links

Even as AT&T installs a GigaPower network in Winston-Salem (NC), the city itself is getting ready to link departments together with its own stand-alone fiber optic network. The Winston-Salem City Council approved spending $826,522 to buy networking equipment that will allow the city to tap into its fiber optic connections when they are completed later in 2015. The city approved entering into a contract with NWN Corporation to provide the switches, routers and other equipment needed to link city computers to fiber optic cables being installed by the NC Department of Transportation. “The city will save a significant amount of money with this fiber,” said Dennis Newman, the chief officer of the city’s information systems department. “We hope to have the network operational by the end of the calendar year.”