By Marty Mayfield
KRTN Multi-Media
Change in this world is constant and how you choose to deal with it whether by embracing it and working with it or simply push back and choose to not deal with it is a choice only you can make but much of that change is here to stay and even then in a year or few it will change even more as technology continues to grow and stretch the bounds of our understanding.
Many of you who read this may remember the days when you played cards or dominoes at the kitchen table to pass the time or create family time or curled up next to a warm fire reading a book or newspaper. Like it or not change has brought new technology and new woes that have to be dealt with. Unfortunately, certain technologies such as how our electricity is produced and the amount of electricity produced has not kept up with the other technologies that use that power. As the climate changes and the country sees drought conditions the desalination of sea water has not progressed that far either to provide a drinkable water source.
Another change that Raton has seen is that the city has finally come into the high-speed internet era with fiber optic cable being installed in most all of the Raton area. That change is mostly beneficial for Raton as it allows for a remote work force to work away from an office space. It will also change the face of education as remote learning becomes more common and the possibility of a remote classroom when the kinks get worked out of that concept. Many colleges have already adopted a remote learning concept with the aid of high-speed internet.
New Mexico secured over $675 million in federal Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment (BEAD) funding. The federal government approved New Mexico’s infrastructure plan, directing over $382 million toward 31 projects. This phase aims to serve more than 42,000 unserved and underserved households across 32 of New Mexico’s 33 counties. Bacavalley and Resound received funding through the Connect New Mexico broadband initiative to install the fiber in Raton.
Century Link is the grandpa of the telephone network in Raton as they have been here for ages and have roots in the old Mountain Bell era. Much of what Century Link still has in Raton is copper cable with some very limited fiber optic capability. By far Bacavalley and Resound are the big providers of fiber optic internet in Raton. Bacavalley has installed fiber from Canyon Road south to the south end of Raton south of MCMC and west to the country club area of town. They have some fiber that goes over to the Aquatic Center and the government buildings east of there as well as along Clayton Road which goes on out east of Raton. While they have some Fiber in the Bartlett Mesa area most of that area is covered by their wireless coverage. Resound has service in the area north of I-25 and to the east part of Raton.
High Speed internet is in Raton, but how does it get here, how is Raton connected to the outside world? Bacavalley has fiber cable that comes into Raton from the east and is fed by Plateau Telephone out of Clovis. They also get internet service from Zayo Fiber and New Mexico Fiber Network. Resound connects to Zayo Fiber and Bacavalley. There is a long-haul fiber cable that runs from Texas to Denver and points west that Bacavalley receives an internet connection from in the Des Moines but area that set of cables do not come to or through Raton. About every 45 miles or so there is a Regen facility for that fiber cable. Those Regen facilities take the incoming signal and regenerate it to send on down the line. Those are the brown buildings that are often seen near the highway like the ones near Des Moines and south of Walsenburg next to the interstate. Also, Starlink has a ground hub just east of Des Moines on US 64/87 that ties into the long-haul fiber at the Regen facility next to it.
From Raton the Bacavalley Fiber goes to Cimarron and Maxwell with plans to go on south to tie into a fiber facility near Wagon Mound which will create some redundancy for Bacavalley by adding another loop for the data to travel. There is also a Lumen fiber cable that follows the railroad tracks up from Albuquqerque and terminates in Raton. Lumen is currently building a facility in south Raton off Kearney Ave for that fiber.
The fiber cable comes into a central office location or as some might call it a Hub. From that location the fiber trunk lines travel throughout Raton to what are often referred to as nodes or Fiber to the Home (FTTH) connections where the fiber signal is broken out to individual homes.
This high-speed internet has to some extent brought the demise of the TV Cable Company as seen here in Raton when Comcast Cable chose to leave Raton. As the TV Cable companies quickly learned they too got into the fiber optic business and are now providing not only streaming services, but some are offering cell service as well, Xfinity for example.
With high-speed internet a reality the science fiction movies are coming to life as Artificial Intelligence has infiltrated our computer lives. This is where it gets complicated and again here is where the power technology and cooling technology to run data centers has not kept up with the pace of expanding AI computer technology. There are a lot of questions that are still unanswered in this area. But it is very evident that new concepts and technology will have to be developed in order to handle the expansion.
How much will it be used and for what purposes? The human race will have to learn to adapt to the new technology and use it responsibly. Society is already dealing with teenagers and adults who are unable to cope with the pressures that social media has brought to society and that has only come to life in the last few years and grown exponentially with the high-speed internet. Many schools are struggling with the need to use the technology to teach but yet keep students engaged and away from the sensationalism of posting a disturbance or getting that five minutes of fame on social media. Raton Schools implemented a no cell phone policy this year to combat just that. According to Raton Schools Principals they are seeing students interacting with each other more and more since the cell phone ban went into effect.
How much of what we see on the internet is truth or fiction as companies like Adobe create AI for use in their programs to change a face or style or add a new sky to a picture. Where will the computer power to do all this AI manipulation be housed?
With the limited Fiber Optic infrastructure here in Raton how will the community use these resources to help it grow or to keep working people here to enjoy the quality-of-life aspects Raton has to offer. What is meant by limited Fiber Optic Infrastructure is that other than Bacavalley’s fiber the other fibers come to Raton but do not go on to other places.
So many questions so few answers as Raton moves forward trying to understand and grasp the new technology to make Raton a better place.
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