January 20, 2000 Web posted at: 10:55 a.m. EST (1555 GMT) by Dan Caterinicchia

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(IDG) -- The first phase of FiberNet, a multimillion-dollar broadband network that will connect all Montgomery County, Md., facilities on an efficient, speedy system, has been finished in the second year of the five-year project.

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Before this, the county had a segmented communications infrastructure for voice, video and data, but FiberNet combines each of those networks. When FiberNet is complete, hundreds of government sites will be connected across an Asynchronous Transfer Mode backbone. ATM enables organizations to transmit data in equal-size "packets" so that no one data file creates a network bottleneck, which allows the same network to send e-mail, graphics and video files.

The broadband network will create an interconnected system of communications links among the county's public safety divisions, health care facilities, educational entities and administrative infrastructure.

FiberNet was designed, developed and is being installed by Annapolis, Md.-based ARINC Inc., a communications systems integrator. The company is using voice, video and data convergence switches from General DatacComm Industries Inc., based in Middlebury, Conn., to connect facilities to the backbone.

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General DataComm also will provide remote network monitoring management, maintenance and on-site service for the ATM backbone.