TecHnoLoGy - Broadband Properties

Cable Fights and SwitchesCable providers have been publicly skeptical about FTTH, but they’rebeginning to admit it has a place in their universe.By Masha Zager ■ Broadband Properties“Us Tareyton smokers would rather fight than switch,” was the tagline of a cigarette ad remembered fondly bymany of us of a certain age. The photo in the ad showed a man proudly displaying a black eye. The cable industry’santi-fiber rhetoric, with its unswerving loyalty to coaxial cable and DOCSIS technology, at times evokesthe Tareyton man’s fighting spirit, if not his dubious grammar or unhealthy habits.But at a certain point reality sets in. The reason nearly all of the major FTTH electronics vendors are announcing cableorientedPON products (see “Cable Industry Signals Move to FTTH” in this issue) is that they know – and they know theMSOs know – FTTH is the endgame for cable. Not only is it the endgame, it’s a small but growing part of the midgame,too, with advantages in greenfield and commercial deployments.So while the rhetoric continues unabated, cable companies have been quietly experimenting with fiber, in trials or in smallpilot projects. We note three of them in this month’s roundup. Some are deploying fiber only when a developer insists on it;others are using fiber proactively to pursue new markets. But reluctant or not, the cable companies appear to have arrived atthe point where the question about fiber is no longer “Yes or no?” but rather “How and when?”– MZINDEPENDENTTELCOSSureWest Brings FTTH to KansasCalifornia competitive providerSureWest Communications,which pioneered FTTH andIPTV in the Sacramento area, acquiredKansas’ Everest Broadband in February.Recently SureWest announced thatEverest (which will now operate underthe SureWest name) will be adding10,000 new homes in the greater KansasCity area in 2008, including an expansioninto several Kansas communitiesthat have requested Everest services.As many as 8,000 of the new residentialadds will be served by fiber-to-thehome,with broadband speeds up to 50Mbps symmetrical.Oxford Networks, a CLEC inMaine, recently reported on its fiber-tothe-businessbuildout: In Bangor andBrewer, its first deployments, Oxford isnearing completion of a fiber network tothe business corridors that will pass 1,200potential business customers. By the endof the summer, builds passing 1,900 businessesthrough Topsham, Brunswick,Freeport, Yarmouth, Falmouth and Portlandare expected to be completed. Andby year’s end, Oxford will complete additionalfiber networks in South Portland,Scarborough and Waterville.Marquette-Adams Telephone Cooperative,based in Oxford, Wisconsin,currently provides triple play servicesover Occam Networks’ ADSL2Plusplatform, but the rising demand forbandwidth led the company to deployOccam’s GPON solution. Marquette-Adams, which operates 3,500 accesslines, plans to achieve its goal of 100percent deployment of FTTH in thenext three to four years.“As we developed plans to advanceour triple play service offerings to our subscribers,we determined that a GPON sol-ution made strategic and economic sensefor the future of our access network,” saysBryan Amundson, Marquette-AdamsCEO. “After a thorough review process,Occam Networks’ GPON products roseabove competing solutions based on itsease of deployment, rapid turn-up andinnovative suite of features.”D&P Communications, a Michigantelco that also delivers broadbandInternet access and video overcable, has selected Motorola’s GPONsolution to build out all-fiber networksfor delivery of triple play entertainmentand broadband services.D&P Communications will deploy theMotorola AXS2200 Optical Line Terminaland new ONT1400GT opticalnetwork terminal that are optimized forthe delivery of IP and RF video entertainmentand broadband services. BecauseGPON supports RF video, D&P18 | BROADBAND PROPERTIES | www.broadbandproperties.com | July 2008