A new technology will offer apartment dwellers high-speed Internet access over their existing telephone lines without interrupting normal telephone service.
The LongRun system, announced Monday by Tut Systems, expands the capabilities of the company's HomeRun product that uses existing copper phone wiring in houses and apartment buildings for high-speed data distribution.
LongRun is designed to work in apartment complexes (as opposed to high-rise apartment buildings), which the company said represent 70 percent of US apartments.
Before LongRun [apartment building high-speed access options] were limited at best, said Craig Stouffer, Tut's vice president of marketing.
While high-speed technology from phone companies, ISPs, and cable services deliver data services to the so-called "last mile," Tut plans to supply the technology to distribute the bits to multiple tenants once it gets there.
This will be accomplished using an Ethernet local access network and spreading high-speed connectivity service -- such as T-1, ISDN, or ADSL -- throughout a building complex.
LongRun delivers data at 1 megabit per second at distances of up to a half mile.
Under the LongRun system, apartment owners would buy services from an ISP, which would handle the equipment, administration, and billing. LongRun is best suited for complexes either unsuitable for new wiring or too spread out for standard Ethernet networks.
