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Fiber to the Home 

At an Inflection Point 

What happens when the first big fiber deployments are completed 

Is this the beginning of the end or the end of the beginning 

By Masha Zager ■ Broadband Properties 

At the FTTH Conference this month, the industry 

is contemplating life after FiOS. Of course, Verizon 

isn’t done with FiOS – it still has another million 

or more homes to pass with fiber, as well as 3 million 

homes already passed (3.5 million for TV) that are waiting 

to be marketed – not to mention 9 million more potential 

customers to woo in existing FiOS markets (or perhaps 8 

million, after the spinoff to Frontier). Somewhere along the 

line, it will probably also upgrade the network, or portions 

of it, to 10GPON and add new services. 

Still, the actual rollout of FiOS is largely complete, and 

nothing else on the horizon looks quite as big. Some other 

large fiber deployments, including SureWest’s, are also coming 

to an end. The impressive charts that we’ve published 

for the last several years showing the dramatic expansion of 

FTTH will now begin to flatten out. 

However, as Joe Savage, president of the Fiber-to-the- 

Home Council, points out in this issue, the underlying 

drivers for FTTH haven’t gone away; if anything, they’re 

stronger than ever. As this very long deployment roundup 

demonstrates, many telcos, cable companies, municipalities, 

property owners and others are convinced that fiber is 

the key to meeting the bandwidth demands of consumers, 

businesses, cellular providers and utilities. All these reports 

of new projects, expansions, upgrades and improved service 

offerings suggest that the appeal of fiber is wider than ever. 

(There’s more, too – we didn’t have room in the print edition 

for international news.) 

Passing the baton to smaller providers may have benefits 

in terms of bridging the digital divide. Some of these organizations 

have the luxury of being able to consider the longterm 

profits and the community benefits that fiber enables; 

answering to a city council, a cooperative board or an owning 

family is very different from having to meet analysts’ 

quarterly earnings targets. Municipalities, cooperatives and 

privately owned companies can build fiber networks in areas 

that Verizon and other public companies can’t touch. In still 

other areas, grants and subsidized loans are making it possible 

to build out fiber. 

In addition, as new services are introduced, the economics 

of FTTH will shift. Elsewhere in this issue, James Salter 

of Atlantic Engineering Group calls smart-grid applications 

a “revolutionary opportunity” for FTTH networks, and this 

roundup includes several deployments in which the smart grid 

was a primary instigator – including Opelika, Ala., which just 

held a successful referendum on community broadband. So 

there are many reasons to believe that the 2010 inflection 

point is only the end of the beginning. 

– MZ 

New Broadband Stimulus Awards 

The Departments of Agriculture and 

Commerce must award the entire broadband 

stimulus appropriation (now down 

to $6.9 billion) by the end of September. 

Although both agencies have consistently 

been behind schedule, on August 

4, they announced an ambitious timeline 

for getting all the remaining funds 

allocated by the statutory deadline. On 

the same date, the USDA Rural Utilities 

Service announced awards to 126 

last-mile projects totaling $1.2 billion 

in grant and loan funding. This batch 

of awards included far more DSL and 

wireless projects than previous batches 

and included a few wireless projects that 

did not even appear to meet the weak 

National Broadband Plan goals of 4 

Mbps downstream/1 Mbps upstream. 

However, nearly two-thirds of the 

$1.2 billion went to fund projects that 

were based entirely or primarily on fiberto-the-home 

technology. These included 

several very large awards: $124 million 

22 | BROADBAND PROPERTIES | www.broadbandproperties.com | August/September 2010

to West Kentucky Rural Telephone Cooperative, $66 million 

to Highland Telephone Cooperative and $64 million to Montana 

Opticom. In addition, VTel Wireless will deploy some 

FTTH in its primarily 4G wireless project. 

Recipients are mainly independent telephone companies 

but also include an electric co-op, a public utilities district and 

tribal authorities. More than half had prior experience with 

deploying FTTH. See the list below for details. 

RUS Broadband Initiatives Program Awards for FTTH Projects 

Loans and Grants Announced August 4, 2010 

Applicant State Award Amount Potential Subscribers Previous 

(Millions; may be 

fttH 

supplemented by 

non-RUS funds) 

Allband Communications Cooperative MI $8.6 3,800 people, 95 businesses, x 

www.allband.org 

9 community institutions 

Allband Communications Cooperative MI $1.1 500 people, 20 businesses x 

www.allband.org 

Atlantic Telephone Membership Corporation NC $16 8,700 people, 270 businesses, x 

www.atmc.net 


AtLink OK $8.5 4,000 people, 1,400 businesses, 

www.atlinkwifi.com 


Baldwin Telecom WI $9.1 3,600 people, 30 businesses, x 

www.baldwin-telecom.net 


Calaveras Telephone CA $4.1 1,000 people, several businesses x 

www.calaverastelephone.com 

Cascade Networks WA, OR $3.7 3,100 people, 200 businesses, x 

www.cascadenetworks.net 


Castle Cable TV NY $7.2 5,500 people, 217 businesses, 

www.castlecabletv.com 


Chequamegon Communications Cooperative WI $31.1 10,400 people, 959 businesses, 

www.cheqtel.com 


Cimarron Telephone Company* OK $42.4 21,500 people, 933 local x 

www.cimtel.net 

businesses, 35 community 

institutions 

Clear Lake Independent Telephone IA $7.9 2000 people, 20 businesses x 

www.cltel.com 

Climax Telephone Company MI $3.2 1,800 people, 50 businesses, 

www.ctstelecom.com 


Farmers Mutual Telephone Company MN $9.7 3,700 people, 165 businesses, x 

www.farmerstel.net 


Farmers’ Mutual Telephone Company IA $8.6 3,700 people, 70 businesses, 

www.omnitel.biz 


Federated Telephone Cooperative MN $3.0 950 people, 20 businesses x 

www.fedtel.net 

Foothills Rural Telephone Cooperative KY $21 6,000 people, 800 businesses, x 

www.foothills.net 


Grand River Mutual Telephone MO $12.4 2,800 people, 750 businesses, x 

www.grm.net 


Grand River Mutual Telephone MO $9.0 1,500 people, 350 businesses, x 

www.grm.net 


Griggs County Telephone Company ND $22.1 4,000 people, 400 businesses, 

www.mlgc.com 


Highland Telephone Cooperative TN, KY $66.5 52,000 people, 1,800 businesses, x 

www.highlandtel.net 


Home Communications KS $2 500 people, 24 businesses, 

www.hometelco.net 


Home Telephone Company SC $4 2,700 people, x 

www.hometelco.com 


August/September 2010 | www.broadbandproperties.com | BROADBAND PROPERTIES | 23

Applicant State Award Amount Potential Subscribers Previous 

(Millions; may be 

fttH 

supplemented by 

non-RUS funds) 

Hospers Telephone Exchange IA $8.3 2,000 people, 150 businesses, 

www.hosperstel.com 


Iowa Tribe of Kansas and Nebraska KS $.8 150 people, 12 businesses, 

http://ioway.nativeweb.org/iowayksne.htm 


Litestream Holdings FL $5.1 1,300 people, 375 businesses, x 

www.litestream.net 


Lumbee River Electric Membership Corp. NC $19.9 27,000 people, 1,600 businesses, 

www.lumbeeriver.com 


Mid-Plains Rural Telephone Cooperative TX $2.8 670 people, 14 businesses x 

www.midplains.coop 

Monroe Telephone Company OR $5.7 2,300 people, 29 businesses, 

www.monroetel.com 


Montana Opticom MT $64.1 18,500 people, 4,100 businesses, x 

www.mt-opticom.com 


Myakka Communications FL $7.9 5,000 people, 2,000 businesses, 

www.myakka.com 


Nemont Telephone Cooperative MT $26.0 7,250 people, 200 businesses, x 

www.nemont.net 


Peoples Rural Telephone Cooperative KY $25 11,000 people, 100 businesses, x 

www.prtcnet.org 


People’s Telecommunications KS $7.8 1,800 people, 50 businesses, 

www.peoplestelecom.net 


Public Utility District 1 of Chelan County WA $25 16,000 people, 135 businesses, x 

www.chelanpud.org 


Slic Network Solutions NY $27.8 14,000 people, 112 businesses, x 

www.slic.com 


Socket Telecom MO $23.7 6,500 people, 260 businesses, 

www.socket.net 


South Central Utah Telephone Association* UT $9.2 7,200 people, 212 businesses, x 

www.southcentralcommunications.com 


Southeast Nebraska Communications NE $11.3 3,000 people, 50 businesses, x 

www.sentco.net 


Sycamore Telephone Company OH $4.1 4,200 people, 450 businesses, 

www.sycamoretelephone.net 


Tohono O’Odham Utility Authority* AZ $10.3 6,500 people, 1,300 businesses, x 

www.toua.net 


VTel Wireless* – VT, NY, $116.8 130,000 people, 3,750 businesses, x 

www.vermontel.com NH 700 community institutions 

Warm Springs Telecommunications* OR $5.4 1,800 people, 18 businesses, 


West Kentucky Rural Telephone Cooperative – KY, TN $123.8 41,000 people, 3,500 businesses, 

www.wktelecom.coop 


Wikstrom Telephone Company* MN $7.4 12,000 people, 1,500 businesses, 

www.wiktel.com 


Wilkes Telecommunications NC $21.6 8,500 people, 3,300 businesses, x 

www.wilkes.net 


Winnebago Cooperative Telecom Association IA, MN $19.6 8,000 people x 

www.wctatel.com 

Woodstock Telephone Company MN $15.2 8,000 people, 180 businesses, x 

www.woodstocktel.com 


XIT Rural Telephone Cooperative TX $2.1 500 people, 50 businesses x 

www.xit.net 

* Project includes other access technologies in addition to FTTH 


INDEPENDENT 

TELCOS 

All Our Customers Need Higher-Speed Accesss 

Wabash Mutual Telephone, a subscriber-owned 

telephone exchange in 

western central Ohio, chose Occam 

Networks’ BLC 6000 multiservice access 

platform (MSAP) to expand its 

broadband services. As part of a $4.3 

million broadband stimulus-funded fiber 

project, Wabash will provide digital 

television, high-speed Internet and voice 

services to Fort Recovery and the surrounding 

area. Work on the project has 

already begun, and the first services will 

be turned up before the end of the year. 

The project is expected to be completed 

in less than three years. 

“In addition to our residential customers, 

Fort Recovery is home to several 

major businesses, including a worldwide 

distributor of farming equipment, one 

of the top 10 egg production companies 

in the United States, an automotive 

parts manufacturer and a die cast facility,” 

says Mike Boley, CEO of Wabash 

Mutual Telephone. “What our customers 

all have in common is the need for 

higher-speed access.” 

A long-time Occam partner, Wabash 

Mutual began rolling out triple-play services 

in 2005 and has been working with 

Occam ever since to expand its service 

footprint and migrate to an all-IP network. 

For this deployment, Wabash will 

use Ethernet technologies, including 

GigE and 10GigE-capable Ethernet optical 

line terminals (OLTs) and the ON 

2342 optical network terminal (ONT). 

Slic Network Solutions, a subsidiary 

of Nicholville Telephone, also chose 

Occam’s MSAP to serve more than 

700 households and 39 businesses and 

anchor institutions in remote western 

Franklin County, N.Y. As part of a $5.2 

million broadband stimulus fiber project, 

Slic will offer triple-play services, 

including three tiers of high-speed Internet 

and IPTV. 

“The local communities are both excited 

and surprised that we are bringing 

broadband into an area that has never 

experienced the benefits of high-speed 

Internet,” says Phillip Wagschal, Slic’s 

CEO. “We are pleased to be part of a 

project that bridges the digital divide 

with communications services that promote 

growth and development in both 

the townships and the outlying areas.” 

Slic has a long-standing reputation 

for bringing advanced broadband services 

to the north country. Past deployments 

have included constructing lastmile 

fiber networks to serve neighboring 

communities, particularly to deliver 

high-speed access to anchor institutions 

that include hospitals, school districts 

and government offices. This deployment 

will include dedicated fiber optic 

connections between hospitals and rural 

clinics in Franklin County. 

Slic has already begun working on 

the Franklin County project and expects 

the deployment to be fully under way by 

fall. It will deploy 136 miles of fiber optic 

cable across five townships and the 

surrounding areas. Slic will use GPON 

technology, including the BLC 6322 

GPON OLT and the ON 2541 ONT. 

Big Bend Telephone Company in 

Alpine, Texas, has deployed Occam’s 

BLC 6000 MSAP to transition from 

copper to fiber broadband services. Big 

Bend Telephone covers a territory larger 

than the state of Rhode Island, serving 

its customers with a mix of access network 

technologies, including GigE and 

GPON for anchor institutions such as 

rural health clinics, a local university 

and regional Homeland Security offices. 

As part of a strategic shift to Ethernet 

and a fiber infrastructure, Big Bend 

will use the BLC 6000 MSAP to deliver 

voice, high-speed Internet and data 

backup services to residential and business 

customers. In less demanding areas, 

the BLC 6000’s DSL technology will 

provide broadband coverage. 

Central Scott Telephone, headquartered 

in Eldridge, Iowa, deployed Occam 

solutions in two significant upgrade 

projects: an upgrade of its existing DSL 

network and a competitive overbuild 

that will make advanced FTTH services 

available in the neighboring Quad Cities 

area. In the Quad Cities, which offer a 

high population density and more than 

300,000 broadband-hungry consumers, 

Central Scott deployed GPON in the 

BLC 6000 MSAP and began delivering 

high-bandwidth services, effectively positioning 

itself against local competitors. 

Central Scott also serves anchor institutions, 

such as schools and government, 

and it networks several medical 

facilities with connections as fast as 100 

Mbps. These new rings are connected to 

Iowa Network Services (INS), an organization 

of 127 independent telephone 

companies that operates a statewide fiber 

optic network. 

Reducing Cost 

and Complexity 

LaWard Telephone Exchange in southern 

Texas selected ADTRAN’s Total 

Access 5000 MSAP and its 300 Series 

ONTs for fiber-based GPON business 

and residential services. LaWard plans 

to extend fiber services to rural residents, 

reaching previously underserved 

areas and also bringing next-generation 

services to existing customers. 

Nick Strauss, plant manager for La- 

Ward Telephone, says, “ADTRAN’s 

unique technology allowed us to reach 

all our customers without adding equipment 

cabinets in the field, significantly 

reducing the cost and complexity of 

our fiber-to-the-home deployment.” 

ADTRAN’s GPON system has a reach 

of 30 km per PON with a full 32-way 

split. 

WNM Communications, formerly 

Western New Mexico Telephone Company, 

also selected ADTRAN’s Total 

Access 5000 for enhanced broadband 

deployment, Carrier Ethernet delivery 

and next-generation services migration. 

WNMC is an ILEC and CLEC service 

provider that serves a 15,000-squaremile 

area of southwestern New Mexico. 

The ADTRAN solution will be used for 


Calix Reaches 100-Customer Milestone for E7 Platform 

More than 100 service providers have now deployed the 

E7 Ethernet Service Access Platform that FTTH equipment 

vendor Calix began shipping in December 2009. 

Calix says this is the fastest deployment rate for any of 

its service platforms; more than 20 percent of its fiber 

access customers are now using the new platform. 

The E7, which was architected to address the challenges 

of an all-video world, is focused entirely on fiberbased 

Ethernet services, both GPON and active Ethernet. 

Geoff Burke, marketing director at Calix, says the E7 supports 

“revolutionary” leaps to next-generation services, 

as opposed to the “evolutionary” approach enabled by 

Calix’ flagship C7 platform, which supports both legacy 

services and next-generation services. 

Independent telcos, municipalities, international carriers, 

cable operators and competitive local exchange 

carriers have all adopted the new E7 platform. Despite 

their diversity, Calix says, they share a common goal of 

bringing fiber-based services to market quickly while 

managing the services efficiently and accommodating 

future capacity growth. 

Fiber on a Small Scale 

Burke explains that service providers have chosen the E7 

as a solution in four different scenarios: 

First, the scalability of the E7 allows providers to deliver 

advanced, fiber-based services in small areas. (The 

building block of the E7 is a one-rack-unit, two-slot chassis.) 

Smaller providers choose the E7 for rural exchanges 

in dire need of upgrading, in which a rip-and-replace 

strategy makes more sense than an evolutionary transition. 

The broadband stimulus program has provided 

funding for many buildouts of this type; nearly all the 

Calix customers that have been awarded stimulus grants 

and loans have selected the E7 as their key platform. 

One of these customers, Mike George, president and 

general manager of Northeast Louisiana Telephone 

Company, says, “As a broadband stimulus award winner, 

it was important for us to ensure that we were deploying 

a platform that was aligned with the long-term strategic 

needs of our network. The E7 provides us with the peace 

of mind that we can utilize the right technology to address 

emerging applications in our network, while providing 

us an operational model that allows us to scale 

after broadband stimulus projects are over.” 

Although most larger providers, such as Tier 2 telcos, 

are not deploying the E7 widely because they are retaining 

their existing last-mile copper, nearly all of them 

have niche locations where they want to deploy highend 

services, and the E7’s scalability allows them to do 

this on a pay-as-you-grow basis. 

Active Ethernet on a Large Scale 

A second scenario in which the E7 is gaining traction is 

large-scale deployment of active Ethernet services. “It 

takes a unique set of economic models and drivers to 

be able to deliver active Ethernet to tens of thousands of 

users,” Burke comments. “But if you’re dropping 1 Gbps 

to every home in the community, the platform is well 

suited to that – every port has symmetrical gigabit services, 

and you need that capacity to scale and manage 

that demand and traffic.” 

A good example of this scenario is South Slope Cooperative 

Communications Company, Iowa’s largest 

independent telco, which selected the E7 along with Calix 

700GX/700GE ONTs to bring active Ethernet services 

to 14,000 homes and businesses. The company plans 

to replace its aging copper infrastructure with a fiber 

access network capable of delivering 1 Gbps to every 

premises. This five-year, $60 million project will leverage 

fiber to deliver IPTV, symmetrical residential and business 

data services and reliable VoIP. J. R. Brumley, South 

Slope’s CEO, says, “We could already see on the horizon 

a need for 50 to 100 Mbps per home, and realized that if 

we didn’t aim higher, we’d be going through this same 

exercise again in a few years’ time.” 

Urban and International Business Services 

A third common use for the E7 is to provide business 

services in urban areas. “Even large MSOs look at it as 

an ideal vehicle for urban business services,” Burke says. 

He adds, “In the traditional model of an ATM envionment 

with T1 lines, if you wanted more bandwidth, you 

placed an order for more T1 lines and another modem. 

But if you are … a competitive exchange carrier addressing 

that need in an urban area, and you come in with 

a less expensive model like Ethernet, you can emulate 

that same service but provide a full Gbps. Or you can 

segment the bandwidth and [customers] can provision 

it or turn the speeds up and down themselves, which 

gives you an enormous economic advantage over the 

incumbent.” 

Finally, a number of Latin American and Caribbean 

service providers have selected the E7 because it is optimized 

for international standards. Its form factor, its ability 

to allow access from the front and its support of E1 

services are all appealing to international operators. 

Transtelco, an innovative operator serving businesses 

throughout northern Mexico and cities along 

both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border, is an example of 

an international provider’s selecting the E7 platform. 

Headquartered in Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua, Mexico, 

Transtelco sees wide fiber deployment as key to its future. 

Targeting companies that do business across the 


order, Transtelco will use both GPON and point-to-point 

Ethernet technologies on the E7 to support E1, T1, GigE 

and a variety of Metro Ethernet Forum services. 

“As a [communications service provider] competing 

against a large incumbent operator, it is crucial for Trans- 

telco to differentiate itself and deliver the most advanced 

services efficiently and effectively,” says Manuel Marin, 

vice president of engineering and development at Transtelco. 

“Fiber to the premises provides us with the optimal 

delivery vehicle for addressing our customers’ demands.” 

ADSL2+ residential services and Carrier 

Ethernet services for business customers. 

In the future, WNMC will be able 

to transition to all-fiber services without 

a forklift upgrade. 

“ADTRAN’s Total Access 5000 

enables us to service both business and 

residential customers from a single 

platform,” says Dom Bianco, general 

manager, WNMC. “This solution will 

allow us to significantly improve our 

operational efficiency, reduce costs and 

gracefully transition to an all-Ethernet 

architecture without replacing existing 

ATM-based customer modems or core 

equipment as we begin our migration to 

next-generation services.” 

Oxford Networks, a telecommunications 

company in Maine, selected 

the Total Access 5000 to deliver a mix 

of voice, high-speed Internet access, 

FTTH and Carrier Ethernet services to 

residential and business customers, including 

key anchor institutions such as 

schools and libraries. Oxford Networks 

has one of the largest fiber investments 

in northern New England and is aggressively 

modernizing its network to bring 

next-generation services to market, using 

the 10 Gigabit Ethernet transport of 

the Total Access 5000. 

Reliance Connects, a telecom provider 

in Oregon and Nevada, also selected 

ADTRAN’s Total Access 5000 

platform, along with the Total Access 

1124P Sealed DSLAMs and Total Access 

300 Series ONTs for future FTTH 

deployments. 

A Transformative 

Technology 

In addition to the stimulus program it 

oversees, RUS continues to operate its 

ongoing loan programs. In July, through 

its telecommunications program, RUS 

awarded a $7.1 million loan to Swisher 

Telephone Company in North Liberty, 

Iowa, to provide FTTP-based service 

to 779 subscribers and make improvements 

to its system. 

A Minnesota telco, Lismore Cooperative 

Telephone Company, is wrapping 

up the deployment of fiber to its 

320 subscribers with the help of an RUS 

loan, according to local press reports. 

The company began building its pointto-point 

fiber network in 2009. It plans 

to deliver voice and Internet services and 

is considering offering a video service in 

the future. 

In another RUS-funded project, 

KanOkla Networks selected Zhone’s 

MXK Terabit-Scale MSAPs and zNID 

ONTs for an extensive FTTH project 

that will provide the foundation for 

1 Gbps active Ethernet service. 

KanOkla currently serves 20 exchanges 

in a 1,400-square-mile region 

that extends throughout Oklahoma and 

Kansas. Many of its subscribers live 10 

miles or more from its central offices. 

“We see FTTH as a transformative 

technology for our communities,” says 

Greg Aldridge, CEO of KanOkla. “For 

example, broadband fiber is helping 

ranchers and farmers in our area compete 

more effectively in the open market 

through online video auctions and upto-the 

minute intelligence on commodity 

pricing.” 

“At a relatively early stage in the 

technology, over-the-top video already 

accounts for roughly 30 percent of 

Internet bandwidth traffic, making 

1 Gbps service inevitable,” says Ed Bernard, 

plant supervisor and director of 

KanOkla’s FTTH project. “Scalability 

and the flexibility to make changes and 

provision new services remotely provide 

savings that will continue to compound 

for our subscribers over time.” 

KanOkla employed the Nebraska 

firm HunTel Engineering to assist with 

RUS funding, network design and vendor 

selection. HunTel and KanOkla 

evaluated offerings from six vendors and 

selected two. “Zhone’s autoprovisioning 

is a key differentiator, and it becomes 

increasingly valuable in a dispersed geography,” 

says Karlin Kelley, general 

manager of HunTel. 

Ohio independent phone company 

CT Communications is deploying the 

Allied Telesis Intelligent Multiservice 

Access Platform (iMAP) active Ethernet 

product line for its next-generation 

network. “We chose the Allied Telesis 

active Ethernet platform because we 

were confident it could support our 

network bandwidth needs, both today 

and in the future,” says Tim Bolander, 

director of network operations for CT 

Communications. “We recognized early 

on the need for 100 Mbps symmetrical 

capabilities, and with Allied Telesis, we 

can improve service and deliver a strong 

quality of experience to our customers. 

We envision our implementation of the 

Allied Telesis solution as a model for the 

FCC’s National Broadband Plan.” 

Initially, CT Communications will 

deploy active Ethernet FTTP to residences 

and businesses in the Urbana, 

West Liberty and Bellefontaine, Ohio, 

areas. The company will migrate its 

customers from older BPON and DSL 

systems. 

A core business requirement for CT 

Communications was a unified management 

system. The Allied Telesis 

AlliedView unified network management 

system met CT Communications’ 

need, as it provides flow-through provisioning 

that will lower the total cost of 

ownership. 

Canadian competitive provider 

Vianet Internet Solutions is using Enablence 

solutions to bring high-definition 

television and fast Internet connectivity 

to Greater Sudbury, Ontario. Over 

the past 15 years, Vianet has expanded 

across Ontario to provide competitive 


phone, Internet, data and hosting services. 

Now it is moving to triple-play 

services over FTTH. 

Using a GPON solution on Enablence’s 

MAGNM platform, Vianet 

will deliver IPTV with whole-home 

DVR services and enough bandwidth 

to supply HDTV signals to three large 

televisions simultaneously. It will also 

provide Internet access at speeds of up 

to 45 Mbps. 

“We wanted a network that would 

give us the increased bandwidth we 

need now for HDTV and high-speed 

Internet, with an easy and affordable 

upgrade path as the network and the 

demands upon it grow,” says Daniel Regaudie, 

Vianet’s Director of Broadcast 

Services. “MAGNM emerged as the 

obvious choice due to the easy network 

provisioning afforded by its Broadband 

Access Manager [element management 

system] and the future-proof benefits of 

its F-8200 series switch fabrics.” 

The new switch fabrics provide 

10 Gbps redundant connections to access 

modules in the system, and they 

can be upgraded with no service interruptions. 

These features allow an easy 

upgrade path in the future without a 

major investment in new equipment. 

Phase 1 of Vianet’s three-phase rollout 

will be completed by the end of this 

year. Vianet’s goal is to claim a substantial 

share of the 65,000-home Greater 

Sudbury market over the next three to 

four years. In addition, Vianet is also 

considering upgrading to FTTH some 

other Ontario markets that it serves. 

Using GIS to Track 

a Fiber Rollout 

Mid-Plains Rural Telephone Cooperative, 

a telco based in Tulia, Texas, 

recently selected Mapcom Systems’ M4 

Solutions as the GIS tool for its fiber-tothe-premises 

rollout. 

“We are currently constructing 

FTTP in several of our serving areas and 

wanted a product that would allow us to 

take full advantage of mapping the new 

construction,” explains Rick Hurt, OSP 

Manager for Mid-Plains. “M4’s versatility 

was a key component to its selection. 

Having the capability to add as much 

detailed information as we deemed necessary 

and track all the components was 

very important to us.” The M4 Solutions 

software includes design and mapping 

tools; integrated work order, fiber and 

central office management; and support 

applications such as CPR integration, 

dispatch management and services 

management. 

ITS Telecommunications Systems 

(ITS), headquartered in Indiantown, 

Fla., is deploying the Sorrento GigaMux 

1600 and 3200 platforms in its new 

RUS-funded FTTH network, which 

will make high-speed broadband services 

available to every residence in its rural 

service area. By implementing Sorrento’s 

wavelength-division multiplexing platforms 

within its FTTH network, ITS is 

expanding the scalability and flexibility 

of its metro optical infrastructure to offer 

more, higher-speed data services. ITS 

plans to complete its FTTH project by 

the end of 2011. 

“With our FTTH initiative, we are 

able to offer our residential and business 

customers integrated voice and data 

services, with video to be added in the 

near future, as well as effectively provide 

those in our service area with the 

virtually unlimited communications 

capabilities they will want and need as 

technology advances in the future,” says 

Jeff Leslie, president and CEO of ITS. 

“We have dedicated the past four years 

to this project and see the addition of 

Sorrento’s WDM products to our network 

as a critical piece of our new fiber 

optic network architecture.” 

Sorrento Networks’ GigaMux platforms 

enable ITS to deliver high-speed 

services with a minimal capital outlay 

and few management requirements. 

A protocol-independent design allows 

GigaMux platforms to transport and extend 

the traffic of SONET/SDH, layer 

2/3 Ethernet and SAN simultaneously 

and in their native format. This level of 

flexibility and control allows ITS to add 

or upgrade bandwidth incrementally 

based on traffic requirements. 

Hamilton County Communications 

in Dahlgren, Ill., is using the 

GENBAND C15 Compact Softswitch 

to lay the groundwork for its rollout of 

FTTH to seven exchanges in southern 

Illinois. The C15, a VoIP softswitch, 

equips Hamilton to offer hosted business 

solutions, SIP PBX trunking, IP 

Centrex services and SIP multimedia 

applications to residential and small and 

medium-size business customers. GEN- 

BAND is also providing installation, 

commissioning, project management, 

training and technical support services. 

“Our goal is to enable rural Illinois 

subscribers to experience high-quality 

telecommunications services that you 

might typically only see in large metropolitan 

areas,” says Kevin Pyle, general 

manager of Hamilton County Telephone 

Co-op, Hamilton County Communications’ 

parent company. 

GENBAND’s C15 integrates with 

existing TDM infrastructure, making it 

affordable for small and medium-sized 

operators to bring VoIP to their customers. 

Carriers can reuse their existing 

proprietary peripheral equipment rather 

than replacing the entire TDM office. 

new customers for eti’s triad 

ETI Software Solutions deployed its 

Triad service delivery platform to a duo 

of fiber-to-the-home operators: 

• TCT, which offers triple-play services 

in northern Wyoming, used Triad to 

integrate its telephone customer care 

and billing system with the Cisco 

IPTV interface, manage and assign 

set-top boxes, activate IPTV services 

and support on-screen caller ID. 

• Cincinnati Bell used Triad for automated, 

flow-through service activation 

on its FTTH network. Using 

Triad’s application programming 

interface, several BSS and OSS applications 

push data into the service 

delivery platform, which in turn 

provides flow-through activation of 

voice, video, and data on the ONT 

ports. Cincinnati Bell also uses Triad 

to control service activation on video 

set-top boxes and video on demand. 

Cincinnati Bell was recently named 

the exclusive provider of digital television 

programming and high-speed Internet 

connectivity for Fountain Square, 

a public space where Cincinnatians 

gather, celebrate and connect. Cincinnati 

Center City Development Corpora- 


tion (3CDC), one of whose subsidiaries 

manages Fountain Square, entered into 

an agreement with Cincinnati Bell to 

provide these services via its new Fioptics 

product line, which is now available 

to about 50,000 households. 

“Cincinnati Bell is playing a pivotal 

role in the successful revitalization of 

downtown and Fountain Square, our 

city’s premier civic space,” says Steve 

Leeper, president and CEO of 3CDC. 

will ultimately serve the entire city. 

Texas Hill Country telco GVTC 

achieved another milestone in its $35 

million FTTH project. In July, GVTC 

made fiber to the home available to more 

than 1,000 houses, with the capacity to 

immediately provide service to another 

900 lots. Nineteen subdivisions are part 

of this latest expansion. New fiber-tothe-home 

customers can receive cable 

TV, Internet access, voice and security 

monitoring services from GVTC, which 

currently offers the fastest Internet connection 

in South Texas – 40 Mbps. 

When GVTC’s fiber expansion project 

is complete in 2013, it will make fiber to 

the home available to more than 18,500 

houses in the Hill Country. 

Four Telcos Reach Milestones 

Competitive provider Velocity Telephone 

broke ground on the Eagan 

(Minn.) Community Fiber Network in 

April with what it calls the “first metro 

ring fiber network in the country.” 

Metro rings, in which fiber lines form 

interconnected circular networks, are actually 

common; this type of redundant 

construction reduces deployment costs, 

increases network reliability and minimizes 

repair costs. However, a typical 

metro ring connects large business locations, 

while Velocity’s ring connects businesses 

of all sizes as well as residences. 

“High-speed Internet is essential in 

today’s fast-paced, media-heavy world, 

which is why high-speed Internet access 

for all Eagan residents and businesses 

is among the City Council’s top priorities,” 

says Eagan Mayor Mike Maguire, 

who participated in the groundbreaking. 

“We’re very excited that Velocity chose 

Eagan as the first community to extend 

this fiber optic offering to and that Velocity 

is the first telecommunications provider 

to capitalize on making this competitive 

step forward in our community.” 

“Having reliable, cost-effective 

high-speed Internet is a necessity and a 

competitive advantage in today’s marketplace,” 

says Todd Kerin, president of 

Machine Tool Supply, the first Eagan 

business to participate in the network. 

“I believe Velocity’s Eagan Community 

Fiber Network will enhance our ability 

to provide superior service to our diverse 

customer base and, as a result, improve 

our profitability.” 

Phase I of the Eagan network includes 

a 4-square-mile optical fiber ring in the 

northwest quadrant of the city that takes 

advantage of Velocity’s existing colocation 

facility. Additional phases will create 

more interconnected fiber rings that 

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optimum lightpath’s Business Customers Prosper With Fiber Services 

Competitive provider Optimum Lightpath, whose fiber 

network serves businesses in the New York metropolitan 

area, announced new connections with CENX and Telx, 

operators of Carrier Ethernet exchange services. The 

CENX connection enables Optimum Lightpath to directly 

connect its customers to more than 10 million Ethernet 

service locations worldwide – a requirement for global 

organizations looking to establish Ethernet-based, lowlatency, 

high-bandwidth connections between the New 

York metro area and other key locations. 

Telx, an interconnection and colocation provider in 

strategic North American markets, serves some of the 

world’s most advanced algorithmic trading service providers 

and financial exchanges. Many of these businesses 

now have access to Optimum Lightpath’s services in New 

York City and Northern New Jersey, which provide them 

with low-latency and route-diversity advantages. 

Optimum Lightpath also reports on several recent 

customer success stories: 

home health care provider expands care 

with Secure Network 

Visiting Nurse Service of New York (VNSNY) is using 

Optimum Lightpath services to cut costs by more than 

$150,000 per year while expanding patient care. VNSNY’s 

staff and clinicians use Web-based applications and also 

need to communicate securely with other health care 

providers from the office and the field. The organization 

wanted to expand access to more clinicians and staff, roll 

out a teleworker initiative and support its 24/7 contact 

center. 

To meet these needs, VNSNY relocated its data center 

and turned to Optimum Lightpath to double its Internet 

bandwidth and improve circuits to support high-quality 

VoIP services. When Optimum Lightpath rolled out an 

all-Ethernet, all-fiber telecommunications network that 

was scalable, stable and cost-effective, the clinicians, 

who access the Internet primarily via mobile devices 

from patients’ homes, felt the benefits immediately. 

VNSNY’s teleworker initiative also went into high gear, 

allowing the organization to scale up its contact center 

without the expense of a dedicated physical location. 

“We couldn’t be more pleased with how VNSNY has 

been able to grow and deliver an enhanced experience 

to patients, staff and clinicians as a result of rolling out 

smarter telecommunications services,” says Randy Cleghorne, 

VNSNY’s vice president of information technology 

services and support. “We rely so heavily on this network, 

and downtime isn’t an option. With Optimum Lightpath, 

we know the service is stable and problem calls have been 

virtually nonexistent. ” 

Students Gain Better Access to Information 

Brooklyn Law School, a 100-year-old graduate educational 

institution, more than doubled its Internet bandwidth 

capacity and greatly improved voice service and 

reliability while cutting costs. 

“Access to information is at the heart of what allows 

our students and teachers to be successful every day, 

and in a 24/7 access environment, with bandwidth needs 

increasing all the time, it’s important that we work with 

a service provider that can help us meet these growing 

network demands,” says Phil Allred, chief information officer, 

Brooklyn Law School. 

Brooklyn Law School increased its Internet capacity 

from 45 Mbps to 100 Mbps and implemented an improved 

voice service that is more feature-rich and reliable 

than its previous copper-based solution. The institution 

also has greater flexibility to employ new digital 

learning tools and methods in the classroom and across 

campus. 

Fiber Services Attract Business Tenants 

Mack-Cali Realty Corporation, a commercial real estate 

leader in the Northeast, has brought Optimum Lightpath’s 

services into more than 70 buildings to meet the 

demands of its financial services, health care and enterprise 

tenants. 

Mack-Cali, which operates primarily class-A office 

and office/flex buildings, has buildings lit by Optimum 

Lightpath in Morris County, N.J.; Jersey City, N.J.; and 

Westchester County, N.Y., where its clients are seeking 

low latency, high bandwidth, disaster recovery, business 

continuity and other benefits. 

“Mack-Cali’s relationship with Optimum Lightpath 

has emerged as a competitive differentiator, empowering 

us to attract and retain business while assuring 

our tenants that they will always have access to highquality 

telecommunications services,” says Nicholas 

Mitarotonda Jr., vice president of information systems 

for Mack-Cali. “Optimum Lightpath has successfully met 

the demand that our tenants have for cost-effective, 

high-bandwidth services with fast turn-up times. 

“At Mack-Cali, we put strong emphasis on our ‘tenant 

first’ philosophy, which Optimum Lightpath shares and 

has demonstrated time and time again,” adds Mitarotonda. 

“Whether getting telecommunications services 

to a tenant in a brand-new location within just 24 hours 

following a devastating tornado, or beating quoted turnup 

times when a customer needed to be up and running 

fast, we have always been able to count on Optimum 

Lightpath to be a true partner for us. The bottom line is 

that when Optimum Lightpath is involved, we know that 

our tenants are in good hands.” 


XFONE completed its buildout in 

Levelland, Texas, adding 6,200 passings 

to its overall FTTP footprint. Guy Nissenson, 

XFONE’s president and CEO, 

says that since beginning to sign up 

Levelland customers in August 2009, 

the company has seen a strong response 

to its triple-play service offerings; he 

expects to reach 69 percent of the Levelland 

market. The company says the 

Levelland project, which was financed 

through a low-cost loan from RUS, will 

“serve as the blueprint for our future 

projects in new markets.” 

Fiber-to-the-home pioneer SureWest 

Communications, which now serves 

not only its original Northern California 

territory but also parts of the greater 

Kansas City area, has completed its 

FTTH deployment and is now focusing 

on using the network to market advanced 

video and cellular backhaul services. In 

June, the company introduced Online 

DVR Manager and Caller ID on TV at 

no additional cost to qualifying customers. 

Online DVR Manager allows customers 

to manage their DVRs remotely 

from Web-connected computers; Caller 

ID on TV presents incoming caller information 

on customers’ TV screens. 

In his report on the company’s secondquarter 

financial results, SureWest president 

and CEO Steve Oldham said, “Expanding 

our fiber-to-the-home network 

over the last five years has provided us a 

significant performance advantage over 

our competitors. We have a large inventory 

of marketable homes and therefore 

do not require further capital expenditures 

to extend the network. We built 

momentum in our core broadband segment 

during the quarter, highlighted 

by Advanced Digital TV and wireless 

carrier backhaul. Advanced Digital TV 

triggered a sequential increase of 5,200 

RGUs [revenue-generating units], our 

best results since 2008. Taking advantage 

of our ubiquitous fiber network, we 

are working with three major carriers to 

provide wireless backhaul service to over 

200 cell sites and are in negotiations for 

100 additional sites. These backhaul 

projects set the stage for future growth 

on recurring revenue streams, and can 

be delivered quickly and cost-efficiently 

due to our high-capacity networks and 

proximity to cellular sites.” 

RBOC Update 

AT&T Delivers U-Verse Services Over Fiber 

In Two New Communities 

AT&T, the Apartment Renovation 

Group and RPM Management will 

bring AT&T bulk services over FTTP 

at Campus Pointe in Fresno, Calif. – a 

multidwelling, cosmopolitan community 

located at California State University, 

Fresno, that serves more than 

550 residents. Under a new agreement, 

AT&T, through its Connected Communities 

program, will deliver U-verse TV, 

U-verse High Speed Internet and U- 

verse Voice over fiber to designated units 

in Campus Pointe. 

Campus Pointe offers residential living 

options for students, seniors and everyone 

in between. It also offers 30,000 

square feet of office space and plans to 

add restaurants, specialty retail stores, an 

outdoor performance venue, a 14-screen 

movie theater and loft condominiums. 

“This agreement with AT&T gives 

us an advantage over other properties in 

the area, while also boosting the value 

of the apartments we offer here at Campus 

Pointe,” says Chris Duke, property 

manager, Campus Pointe. “Our clientele 

ranges from students to business professionals 

to seniors and, with AT&T’s 

high-speed services, we’re able to meet 

the varying technology demands of our 

residents and guests in an easy, turnkey 

way.” 

Another Connected Communities 

project is the Barclay at Dunwoody in 

Dunwoody, Ga., where AT&T is now 

delivering U-verse TV, U-verse High 

Speed Internet and U-verse Voice over 

an all-IP, all-fiber network. In addition 

to U-verse services, Dunwoody residents 

will have access to a dedicated AT&T 

retail store. 

Ken Wright, mayor of Dunwoody, 

says, “These investments bring the potential 

to grow our economy and create 

new jobs in the area.” Adds Robin 

Johnson, community manager for the 

Barclay at Dunwoody, “Thanks to this 

agreement with AT&T, we’re able to offer 

the latest and greatest entertainment 

solutions directly to our residents, boosting 

the value of our property and making 

this an even more desirable place to 

live in Dunwoody.” 

FiOS Growth Slows 

in Second Quarter 

In the second quarter of 2010, Verizon 

Communications reported a slowdown 

in its FiOS rollout as it approached the 

end of the deployment and prepared to 

sell a large part of its territory to Frontier 

Communications. Highlights of its 

report included the following: 

• As of the end of 2Q10, the FiOS network 

passed 15.9 million premises, 

an increase of about 300,000 over 

the end of the first quarter. 

• Focusing on marketing rather than 

building its fiber network, Verizon 

added 196,000 net new FiOS Internet 

customers and 174,000 net new 

FiOS TV customers; by June 30, it 

had 3.8 million FiOS Internet and 

3.2 million FiOS TV customers. The 

increase in FiOS Internet connections 

during the quarter more than offset a 

decrease in DSL-based connections. 

• FiOS Internet penetration (customers 

as a percentage of potential customers) 

reached 29.7 percent by the 

end of the quarter, when the product 


was available to 12.9 million premises. 

This compares with 28.1 percent 

and 11.0 million, respectively, 

at the end of 2Q09. 

• FiOS TV penetration reached 25.9 

percent by the end of the quarter, 

when the product was available to 

12.4 million premises. This compares 

with 24.6 percent and 10.3 million, 

respectively, at the end of 2Q09. 

• FiOS broadband revenues grew 33.2 

percent year over year. All FiOSbased 

services, including narrowband 

voice, generated 43 percent of 

consumer wireline revenues in 2Q10, 

compared with 33 percent in 2Q09. 

• Average monthly revenue per user 

(ARPU) for FiOS customers exceeded 

$145, compared with $80.76 

in consumer ARPU for all wireline 

services. 

In a marketing departure, Verizon 

made began offering month-to-month 

FiOS bundles at the same prices it 

charges for term contracts. Monthly 

customers receive price protection for 

one year without an early-termination 

Vendor Spotlight 

fee. For customers who want two-year 

price protection, Verizon expanded its 

30-day FiOS Worry-Free Guarantee. 

In the past, prices for month-to-month 

FiOS bundles were $20 higher per 

month than contract term bundles. 

“We’ve listened closely to the market 

and heard potential customers say 

that … they want time to consider their 

switch from cable,” says Mike Ritter, 

Verizon chief marketing officer for consumer 

wireline and business services. 

“We want customers to know that the 

shift to FiOS is the best move they can 

make, that a two-year commitment 

provides them with price protection for 

their home-entertainment needs, and 

that our month-to-month pricing option 

and Worry-Free Guarantee help reduce 

anxiety from their decision.” 

An Upgrade for FiOS1 

Verizon recently deployed Clearleap’s 

cloud-based content management, delivery 

and advertising platform into its 

FiOS TV infrastructure. Its initial deployment 

of Clearleap is being used to 

ADC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . www.adc.com 

ADTRAN ..................................................www.adtran.com 

Allied Telesis .........................................www.alliedtelesis.com 

Amino Communications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .www.aminocom.com 

ARRIS .......................................................www.arrisi.com 

Calix ........................................................www.calix.com 

CCG Consulting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .www.c-c-g.com 

Clearleap . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .www.clearleap.com 

Design Nine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . www.designnine.com 

Enablence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . www.enablence.com 

Ericsson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . www.ericsson.com 

ETI Software Solutions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . www.etisoftware.com 

GENBAND . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .www.genband.com/ 

HunTel Engineering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . www.htleng.com 

Intwine Energy. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . www.intwineenergy.com 

Mapcom Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .www.mapcom.com 

Microsoft . .............................................www.microsoft.com 

Momentum Telecom ........................ www.momentumtelecom.com 

Motorola . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . www.motorola.com 

Occam Networks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .www.occamnetworks.com 

S&C Electric Company ......................................www.sandc.com 

Sorrento Networks ...................................www.sorrentonet.com 

Tantalus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .www.tantalus.com 

Tilgin ...................................................... www.tilgin.com 

Zhone . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . www.zhone.com 

streamline production for the FiOS 1 

channel, which offers hyper-local content, 

including news, sports, traffic and 

weather. 

In addition, Clearleap says it will help 

bolster FiOS1 on VoD across all FiOS 

TV markets. For example, Verizon is using 

Clearleap to help professional sports 

teams deliver VoD content directly to 

FiOS TV subscribers. Several teams are 

already using the Clearleap technology 

to produce, upload and deliver content 

to their respective FiOS VoD channels. 

In Long Island, N.Y., and Washington, 

D.C., Verizon uses Clearleap’s 

cloud-based processing and Web-based 

management portal to help FiOS1 producers 

upload content from anywhere, 

process it centrally and redistribute it 

back to targeted local markets within 

minutes. 

“Clearleap’s platform allows us to 

create more compelling local content 

while dramatically increasing the speed 

and reducing costs for quickly getting 

that content into customers’ homes,” 

says Tricia Lynch, director of content 

strategy and acquisition for Verizon. 

Clearleap’s CEO, Braxton Jarratt, 

adds, “Verizon has done a tremendous 

job of pioneering new, more personalized 

TV experiences in the home. Integration 

of our platform will help them 

offer more content and create huge efficiencies 

in workflow. This also gives 

FiOS the potential to bring more interactivity 

into the living room at a time 

when demand for TV apps is starting to 

flourish.” 

Fiber to the Desk 

in Stony Brook 

At the Center of Excellence in Wireless 

and Information Technology at Stony 

Brook University in New York, Verizon 

Business teamed with Motorola and 

ADC to implement an all-fiber enterprise 

LAN infrastructure solution that 

it says provides a secure, energy-efficient 

and highly cost-effective alternative 

compared with traditional enterprise 

LAN architectures. Verizon Business 

provided integration services and support 

for the implementation, while ADC 

provided all the fiber structured cabling 

components. 


Motorola’s Passive Optical LAN 

(POL) solution includes the AXS1800 

enterprise aggregation switch, the 

ONT1120GE intelligent POL workgroup 

terminal (WGT), the WT21004 

WGT with power over Ethernet and 

the AXSvision advanced management 

system for the enterprise. The solution 

simplifies LAN management and allows 

for the optimization of IT resources. 

Benefits of POL solutions include: 

• Rapid return on investment and low 

total cost of ownership at half the 

cost of copper-based LANs 

• Ease of installation and operation 

• High security 

• All-fiber reliability 

• Reduced environmental impact. 

Bell aliant: ftth in New 

Brunswick and Nova Scotia 

May was a good month for Canada’s Bell 

Aliant. At the beginning of the month, 

the company announced that it was accelerating 

its rollout of FTTH by raising 

its investment to $350 million over 2011 

and 2012. This accelerated investment, 

which will be internally funded, will 

add about $100 million annually to Bell 

Aliant’s current capital program run rate 

and bring fiber-to-the-home services to 

more than 600,000 homes and businesses, 

or approximately one-third of 

Bell Aliant’s competitive territory, by 

the end of 2012. (Bell Aliant expects to 

pass 140,000 homes and businesses with 

FTTH by the end of 2010.) 

Later in the month, Bell Aliant 

launched FibreOP for Business, an Internet 

service for small and medium-sized 

businesses in New Brunswick that offers 

speeds of 20 Mbps downstream and 

5 Mbps upstream. Kelly Duplisea, VP 

for customer solutions at Bell Aliant, 

says, “Offering new services like 

FibreOP for Business provides the foundation 

for business growth and also 

helps attract and retain new and existing 

talent in the future – a key ingredient 

for business success.” 

At the end of May, Bell Aliant annnounced 

that it was bringing FibreOP 

to Nova Scotia and would offer Internet 

speeds of 170 Mbps downstream and 30 

Mbps upstream on the new network. 

This is the first time such Internet speeds 

will be available to residential customers 

in the region. FibreOP services will 

be available in Sydney, Nova Scotia, as 

early as this fall. 

Bell Aliant will invest $15 million in 

the Sydney area to bring FibreOP services 

to more than 30,000 homes and 

businesses. This investment is part of Bell 

Aliant’s previously announced 2010 capital 

program. The province of Nova Scotia 

is contributing $2 million to the project. 

In its second-quarter financial report, 

Bell Aliant said its FTTH expansion 

continues on plan with strong IPTV 

and Internet bundle performance. 

Manitoba Gets Fiber Rollout 

MTS Allstream in Manitoba will invest 

$125 million over the next five years to 

accelerate deployment of its FTTH network, 

branded as FiON. By the end of 

2015, MTS expects to deploy fiber to 

about 120,000 homes in 20 Manitoba 

communities, where it will provide its 

MTS Ultimate TV service and veryhigh-speed 

Internet services. 

Together with the company’s existing 

VDSL networks, this fiber deployment 

should make advanced broadband 

and television available to about 65 percent 

of Manitoba homes. FiON customers 

today have access to Internet services 

with speeds up to 25 Mbps, but MTS 

envisions offering future broadband 

speeds of more than 100 Mbps. 

MTS launched its FTTH network 

this January in Winnipeg and announced 

in April that it would expand 

the initiative to include the city of Selkirk 

and outskirts. The company plans 

to have the Selkirk network fully deployed 

by 2011. 

Municipal 

Fiber 

Smart-Grid Projects in the Tennessee Valley 

BVU, the municipal telecom and electric 

utility for Bristol, Va., and surrounding 

areas, will deploy a smart-grid system on 

its FTTH network, using a communications 

platform from Tantalus Systems. 

BVU was the first municipal utility in 

the United States to offer triple-play services 

over fiber, and Tantalus says adding 

smart-grid applications will give it a 

“home-run” network. 

With the wireless Tantalus LAN, 

not every customer premises has to be 

connected directly to fiber. Rather, each 

fiber connection can serve as a collection 

point for the data from several smart 

meters. This configuration ensures a 

smooth evolution as time-of-use pricing, 

load shedding, customer signalling and 

advanced distribution automation applications 

become more prevalent. 

Broadband is credited for breathing 

new life into the region, according to 

Wes Rosenbalm, BVU’s president and 

CEO, who says, “Here, triple play has 

translated into high-paying jobs, incredible 

educational opportunities and 

a local economy built to thrive during 

tough times.” He adds, “Our sights are 

now set on implementing a smart grid 

that will have the same positive impact 

on the way energy is distributed and 

managed. The ability to leverage [the 

FTTH network] for additional cost and 

energy savings will continue to pay off 

for years to come.” 

EPB of Chattanooga, Tenn., has increased 

the Internet access speeds on its 

FTTH network to 150 Mbps and is also 

proceeding with its implementation of 

smart-grid technology. Using funding 

from a Department of Energy stimulus 

grant, EPB will purchase IntelliRupter 

PulseClosers and the IntelliTEAM SG 

Automatic Restoration System from 

S&C Electric Company. The Intelli- 

Rupter PulseCloser verifies that the line 

is clear of faults before initiating closing. 

PulseClosing reduces stress on system 


components as well as voltage sags experienced 

by customers upstream of a fault. 

This equipment, running on the FTTH 

network, will help EPB achieve the highest 

level of electric service reliability and 

power quality in North America and 

reach its goal of a 40 percent reduction 

in customer outage minutes. 

Morristown Utility Systems 

(MUS) of Tennessee is adding smartgrid 

functionality to its network with 

technology from Tantalus Systems. The 

utility will leverage its FTTH network 

for advanced metering of electricity and 

water, as well as for energy management 

programs that will enable it to interact 

with customers in cost-saving and conservation 

initiatives. 

“Leveraging our fiber network for 

smart-grid applications gives us a head 

start on implementing the energy efficiency 

and demand-response programs 

proposed by the TVA,” says Jody Wigington, 

Morristown’s general manager. 

“We’ve offered FTTH to our 15,000 

customers for five years. By deploying a 

Tantalus system, we’re now in a position 

to build out the value of the network and 

set the stage for time-of-use pricing and 

tightly coordinated load control. This 

will go a long way toward reducing consumption 

and keeping the valley clean 

and green.” 

MUS is also deploying ETI Software’s 

SOLO Field Tech Assistant for 

the maintenance of its FTTH network. 

SOLO Field Tech Assistant supports 

technicians in tasks such as closing work 

orders, assigning services and devices, 

refreshing STBs and swaping ONTs. 

The LENOWISCO Planning District 

Commission extended its FTTH 

network to the community of Blackwater 

in southwestern Virginia, using 

funding from the Rural Utilities Service 

and the Virginia Tobacco Commission. 

This extension will make affordable, 

high-speed Internet services available to 

90 residents and businesses. 

The funding also paid for a new public 

Internet access site at the Blackwater 

Post Office, equipped with 10 computers, 

where residents can access the Internet 

without charge six days a week 

and avail themselves of free computer 

and Internet training workshops. The 

commission will also provide free highspeed 

Internet services for two years to 

the Blackwater Volunteer Fire Department 

and has established a community 

website for Blackwater. 

Muni Systems and Video 

CDE Lightband, the broadband provider 

for the city of Clarksville, Tenn., 

chose Amino Communications as the 

long-term provider of MPEG-4 set-top 

boxes. CDE Lightband serves more 

than 59,000 customers via a 960-mile 

FTTH network. The Amino STBs 

support CDE’s 200 channels of digital 

television, an interactive programming 

guide and VoD service. 

LUS Fiber in Lafayette, La., launched 

an IPTV offering powered by Microsoft 

Mediaroom. The new service, available 

on LUS Fiber’s FTTH network, features 

whole-home DVR, instant channel 

changes, picture-in-picture browsing 

and enhanced search capabilities. “During 

the deployment of our LUS Fiber system, 

a number of our customers asked us 

for more advanced video features,” says 

Terry Huval, director of LUS and LUS 

Fiber. “Microsoft Mediaroom provides 

the platform that will deliver the features 

our customers want and, because 

it’s a Web-based system, it offers us endless 

possibilities for future applications 

and expansion.” To implement the new 

system, LUS must replace all the set-top 

boxes currently in use. 

In North Carolina, the latest of several 

attempts to delay or prohibit municipal 

broadband was defeated in July 

during a late-night legislative session. 

Broadband activists in the state organized 

to keep community broadband 

options open, and apparently they made 

their voices heard. One of the communities 

most pleased by this news is 

Salisbury, which has named its FTTH 

provider Fibrant Communications. 

Fibrant has completed its buildout in 

one neighborhood and is close to finished 

in about half of the city. As BBP 

went to press, the company expected to 

launch services in August. 

In addition to its previously announced 

selections of Zhone for FTTH 

equipment and Ericsson for IPTV, 

Fibrant selected Momentum Telecom to 

provide digital voice solutions and ETI 

Software Solutions to provide the énconcert 

BSS/OSS software suite, which 

supports customer care, work order, 

billing and provisioning. Énconcert is 

preintegrated to Fibrant’s FTTH and 

IPTV technologies as well as the city’s 

enterprise utility billing system; it will 

allow the city to send out a single billing 

statement for all services. 

Fibrant will also deploy ETI’s TV 

Ticket to help market its services, 

whether self-activated, prepaid or complimentary 

services. In addition, Fibrant 

will deploy ETI’s SOLO Field Tech 

Assistant, which lets field technicians 

open and close work orders, manage 

and assign devices and turn up services 

independently without contacting a 

dispatcher. 

UTOPIA, the FTTH network operator 

owned by a consortium of Utah 

cities, announced that one of its member 

cities, Brigham City, is now the 

fastest city in the state, according to the 

NetIndex report released by broadband 

speed tester Ookla. Brigham’s average 

download speed of 21.66 Mbps approaches 

three times the state average 

of 8 Mbps and puts it on par with the 

top five fastest countries in the world. 

Upload speeds in Brigham City are particularly 

impressive: UTOPIA customers 

in Brigham City have average upload 

speeds of 26.08 Mbps, far above the 

second-place ranking of 4.18 Mbps and 

the state average of 2.56 Mbps. 

As part of UTOPIA’s financial restructuring, 

five of its cities have formed 

the new Utah Infrastructure Agency, 

which plans to borrow an additional 

$60 million or more to continue building 

out the fiber network to new subscribers. 

The agency’s plan anticipates 

adding about 20,000 more customers 

over the next several years. 

New Municipal Projects 

Starting Up 

Danville Utilities in Virginia is proposing 

a $2.5 million pilot project for the 

final phase of its nDanville network, 

residential FTTH deployment. A demographically 

diverse neighborhood of 

about 1,200 homes in the Averett community 

has been identified as the first 


targeted area. (A postcard survey of Averett showed about 85 

percent were interested in obtaining service.) A second, similarly 

sized neighborhood will also be selected. nDanville is an 

open-access network on which third-party providers may offer 

telecommunications, entertainment, and Internet services. 

At the time BBP went to press, the Danville City Council 

had scheduled a vote but had not yet voted on the pilot project. 

The Danville Utility Commission has already recommended 

proceeding with the project, which would be funded from existing 

nDanville revenues. 

With its financing plans well under way, the 23-town EC 

Fiber consortium in Vermont has decided to proceed with a pilot 

project. “We have identified several unserved areas that will 

help to prove our concept,” says project director Tim Nulty. 

“Engineering crews started the preconstruction process the 

morning after the vote [by the governing board]. We’re very 

excited to get to work. This has been a long time coming.” 

“Delivering cost-effective, high-quality, reliable broadband 

to rural America is a challenge,” says Ron Cassel, coordinator 

of the buildout. “We decided that we needed an innovative approach 

to that challenge. We have built a successful model in 

our labs, but there is no better test than a real-life deployment. 

That’s when the rubber hits the road. We now have a solid rollout 

plan in place and hope to be installing our first customers 

in a few months!” 

The pilot project will provide a solid foundation for the 

capital lease used to build out the rest of the network, which 

will provide 100 percent coverage in 23 towns in east-central 

Vermont. Although the intent of the pilot project is to prove 

that the larger project is viable, Nulty says, “It will be able to 

stand on its own if we don’t raise another dime of capital.” The 

pilot project will be financed with privately raised funds. 

WiredWest, a project inspired by EC Fiber, has been 

launched by a consortium of 47 towns in western Massachusetts 

that want to build an FTTH network. In June, the towns 

took official action to set the project in motion. Dr. Andrew 

Cohill of consulting firm Design Nine is now working with 

800.882.7950 

www.glds.com 

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the WiredWest committee on its governance, business model, 

financing, needs assessment, market survey and network planning, 

financed by a grant from the Massachusetts Broadband 

Institute. In addition, the Berkshire Regional Planning Commission 

and the Franklin County Council of Governments are 

providing grants for preparatory legal work and GIS mapping. 

Eight Minnesota cities – seven in Sibley County plus the 

nearby city of Fairfax – have received grants from county governments 

and the Blandin Foundation to perform a feasibility 

study for an FTTH network. According to local press reports, 

the feasibility study will be carried out by CCG Consulting. 

Residents of Opelika, Ala., voted in a referendum to approve 

building a community FTTH network throughout the 

city. According to the city’s website, “For many years now … 

numerous complaints were received from citizens about the 

high prices and poor service they were receiving, while others 

have complained that they can’t get any cable service in 

their neighborhoods at all. After years of trying to get other 

cable/Internet providers to come into Opelika and give Charter 

Communications competition – to no avail – we decided 

that the best way to give our citizens competitive services was 

A sign on the city’s website thanks voters for their support. 

to offer competition ourselves.” The city plans to deliver phone, 

Internet and video services over fiber, possibly in partnership 

with cable provider Knology. The municipal electric utility will 

use the network for smart-grid applications. 

Cable 

Companies 

Cable Companies Turn to Fiber 

Trinity Communications, a cable operator 

based in South Pittsburgh, Tenn., 

launched triple-play services over fiber in 

Marion and Sequatchie County, Tenn., 

using ARRIS FTTMax RFoG equipment. 

The major components include 

ARRIS CORWave II multiwavelength 

forward transmitters, FTTMax RFoG 

optical network units (ONUs) at the 

customer premises and the TransMax 

RFoG repeater for optical amplification 

of RFoG wavelengths. When completed, 

the deployment will offer triple-play services 

to approximately 3,000 homes and 

businesses. 

RFoG, which combines RF and 

PON technologies, enables cable operators 

to use their existing headend infrastructure, 

current provisioning systems 

and CPE devices. “We selected the AR- 

RIS CORWave and RFoG solutions because 

of their proven reliability and to 

meet our capital and operational budgetary 

needs,” says James Gee, president 

of Trinity Communications. “In our 

system, population density is low and 

spread out, so the RFoG cost model and 

return on investment is very attractive 

to us. Once the backbone is in place, we 

can simply drop a fiber to the residential 

or small-business customer, install the 

RFoG ONU and they’re set.” 

In a competitive overbuild, cable 

company Merrimac Communications 

is installing fiber to the home in Prairie 

du Sac, Wisc. According to local press, 

the company expects to offer triple-play 

services to every home in the village by 

December and to add another 350 customers 

by the end of the year. 

Other 

deployers 

Connexion Partners With KDM Development 

Network operator Connexion Technologies 

announced a partnership with 

KDM Development, which manages 47 

manufactured-home communities with 

7,500 rental sites. Connexion will create 

a customized network solution for the 

delivery of television, high-speed Internet, 

and telephone for these communities’ 

residents. 

“Our relationship with Connexion 

Technologies has allowed us to simplify 

telecommunications arrangements,” says 

Ken Burnham, founder of KDM. “We 

also look forward to offering enhanced 

services from Connexion Technologies’ 

service providers.” 

Connexion recently placed a volume 

order for home gateway products from 

Swedish provider Tilgin – apparently 

Tilgin’s first major sale of the gateways 

in the U.S. market. According to Tilgin, 


Deployer Spotlight 

States with deployments 

referenced in this article 

Alaska 

North American Telcos 

(See list on p. 23 for new stimulus-funding awardees) 

AT&T 

www.att.com 

Bell Aliant 

www.bellaliant.ca 

Big Bend Telephone Company 

www.bigbend.net 

Central Scott Telephone 

www.centralscott.com 

Cincinnati Bell 

www.cincinnatibell.com 

CT Communications 

www.ctcn.net 

GVTC 

www.gvtc.com 

Hamilton County Communications www.hamiltoncom.net 

ITS Telecommunications Systems www.itstelecom.net 

KanOkla Networks 

www.kanokla.com 

LaWard Telephone Exchange 

www2.laward.net 

Lismore Cooperative 

Telephone Company 

www2.lismoretel.com 

Mid-Plains Rural Telephone Cooperative www.midplains.coop 

MTS Allstream 

www.mts.ca 

Northeast Louisiana 

Telephone Company 

www.northeasttel.com 

Optimum Lightpath 

www.optimumlightpath.com 

Oxford Networks 

www.oxfordnetworks.com 

Reliance Connects 

www.relianceconnects.com 

Slic Network Solutions 

www.slic.com 

South Slope Cooperative 

Communications Company 

www.southslope.com 

SureWest Communications 

www.surewest.com 

Swisher Telephone Company www.swishertelephone.com 

TCT 

www.tctwest.net 

Transtelco 

www.transtelco.com 

Velocity Telephone 

www.velocitytelephone.com/ 

Verizon Communications 

www.verizon.com 

Vianet Internet Solutions 

www.vianet.ca 

Wabash Mutual Telephone www.wabashtelephone.com 

WNM Communications 

www.gilanet.com 

XFONE 

www.xfone.com 

Other North American Deployers 

BVU 

www.bvu-optinet.com 

Case Western Reserve University 

www.case.edu 

CDE Lightband 

www.clarksvillede.com 

Connexion Technologies www.connexiontechnologies.net 

Danville Utilities 

www.ndanville.net 

EC Fiber 

www.ecfiber.ne 

EPB 

www.epb.net 

Fibrant Communications 

www.fibrant.com 

LENOWISCO Planning District Commission www.lenowisco.org 

LUS Fiber 

www.lusfiber.com 

Merrimac Communications 

www.merr.com 

Morristown Utility Systems www.morristownutilities.org 

Trinity Communications 

www.trinitycable.net 

UTOPIA 

www.utopianet.org 

this new order is intended for five of 

Connexion’s student housing projects. 

Case Western Reserve University 

in Cleveland, Ohio, has adopted Wi-Fi 

thermostat technology from Intwine Energy 

for its Case Connection Zone pilot 

research project. The IECT220 and the 

IECT 210 Intwine Wi-Fi Thermostat, 

as well as a beta version of the Intwine 

Energy Wi-Fi Connected Whole-House 

Power Monitor, which includes the Blueline 

Innovations sensor, and Smart Plug, 

have been successfully demonstrated to 

researchers and will be installed into a 

beta community. 

The Case Connection Zone will 

bring 1 Gbps fiber to about 100 residences 

near the university in an initiative 

to determine how high-speed Internet 

connectivity can be made relevant 

and useful in people’s everyday lives. 

The project will include Internet-enabled 

services related to health care, neighborhood 

and public safety, education and 


household energy management. 

The IECT220 Intwine Wi-Fi Thermostat will enable residents 

to remotely monitor and control all home energy usage. 

It will display historical data and trends for individual devices 

and for the entire home, both locally and over the Web. The 

result is expected to be lower energy usage and cost, as well the 

ability to integrate energy usage into personal lifestyles. 

Fiber Through the Sewers Coming to the US 

The British fiber optic infrastructure firm i3 Group has set up 

a U.S. subsidiary. Based in New York, i3 America will follow 

i3’s methods, including the use of ready-made ducts such as the 

sewer system. 

Elfed Thomas, CEO of i3 Group and of i3 America, says: 

“Delivering superfast connectivity is a global issue. The United 

States has exactly the same drivers as the United Kingdom and 

other countries that we are working in. American homes and 

businesses need access to high-speed broadband that supports 

bandwidth-heavy applications such as HDTV, so that people 

can communicate more effectively and access advanced information 

and entertainment services. 

“We have developed a unique offering which allows us to 

build fiber optic networks at a fraction of the cost of traditional 

methods and much faster. The way that we build our networks 

also means that a large part of the workforce is recruited from 

the local area, providing a boost to the local economy.” 

i3 Group is already operating in Australia, the Middle East 

and South Africa, in addition to the United Kingdom. BBP 

INTERNATIONAL 

DEPLOYMENTS 

Fiber through the sewers in the UK ... Shared fiber network in Italy ... FTTH sent to Siberia ... 

First fiber optic service in Iraq ... China Telecom launches major FTTH initiative. 

Read all of these stories and more in the digital edition at 

www.bbpmag.com/bbponline.php 

Broadband Properties 

Magazine Congratulates 

For becoming a 

Diamond Sponsor at the 

2011 Broadband Properties 

Summit. 

For more information on AT&T Connected Communities, visit www.att.com/communities. 

You are cordially invited to come see AT&T Connected Communities at the upcoming 

April 26 – 28, 2011 

InterContinental 

Hotel – Dallas 

Addison, Texas 

The Leading Conference on Broadband Technologies and Services 

To Exhibit or Sponsor, contact: Irene Prescott at irene@broadbandproperties.com, or call 505-867-2668. 

For other inquiries, call 877-588-1649, or visit www.bbpmag.com.

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