CalCulating the Cost savings from rfog
July/Aug 2009 • Vol.30 • No.5
Top
1oo
2009
BroadBand Companies
British Invasion:
New FiberThrough-theSewer Technology
Coming to the US
Do you have the bandwidth
to attract and keep residents?
Broadband at the speed of fiber-optic light. Streaming video and interactive gaming that defy description. The coolest
programming, and more of it, on the purity of HDTV. Pure joy. This is what today’s residents demand. And this is what you
can give them with Verizon FiOS®, the most advanced TV, Internet and phone service available. Set up by our own experts,
who will create a custom installation plan just for you. Verizon FiOS. It’s a clear signal to today’s residents that you get it.
Call 888.376.3608 or go to verizon.com/communities to learn more.
Verizon FiOS tv | internet | phone
verizon.com/communities 888.376.3608
FiOS available in select areas only. Battery backup for standard
fiber-based voice service and E911 (but not VoIP) for up to 8 hours.
©2009 Verizon. All rights reserved.
3 big U.S. fiber opportunities
250,000 cell sites
5,000,000 MDUs
5,000,000 SMBs
Claim your share with
3 new Calix ONT solutions
766GX Enabling 4G evolution
(8 T1, 4 GE, 8 POTS)
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SMB deployment
(4 T1, 4 GE, 8 POTS)
Delivering on
the promise of FTTP
Editor’s Note
The NOFA: Let’s Party
Like It’s 1999
EDITORIAL DIRECTOR
Scott DeGarmo
PUBLISHER
Nancy McCain
nancym@broadbandproperties.com
Corporate Editor, BBP LLC
Steven S. Ross
steve@broadbandproperties.com
Editor
Masha Zager
masha@broadbandproperties.com
ADVERTISING SALES
Irene G. Prescott
irene@broadbandproperties.com
DESIGN & PRODUCTION
Karry Thomas
Contributors
Joe Bousquin
Richard Holtz, InfiniSys
W. James MacNaughton, Esq.
Henry Pye, RealPage
Bryan Rader, Bandwidth Consulting LLC
Robert L. Vogelsang, Broadband Properties Magazine
Broadband Properties LLC
PRESIDENT & CEO
Scott DeGarmo
SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT
CHIEF FINANCIAL OFFICER
Himi Kittner
VICE PRESIDENT,
BUSINESS & OPERATIONS
Nancy McCain
Audience Development/Digital Strategies
Norman E. Dolph
CHAIRMAN OF THE BOARD
Robert L. Vogelsang
VICE CHAIRMAN
The Hon. Hilda Gay Legg
BUSINESS & EDITORIAL OFFICE
Broadband Properties LLC
1909 Avenue G
Rosenberg, Tx 77471
281.342.9655, Fax 281.342.1158
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2
A
Why are federal agencies promoting
decade-old technology?
fter a seemingly interminable
wait, the Notice of Funds Availability (NOFA) for $4 billion of
broadband stimulus funds emerged from
the federal government on July 1, and the
response from the broadband community
was…underwhelming, to say the least.
The document wasn’t what we and
other fiber-to-the-home advocates had
hoped for, a definitive first step toward
a national ultra-broadband network.
Rather, it seems aimed at creating “lowest common denominator” broadband
coverage nationwide.
Its definition of “broadband” is woefully obsolete in terms of speed – advertised speeds of 768 Kbps downstream and
at least 200 Kbps upstream – and doesn’t
consider the strict usage caps that often
apply to wireless broadband. “Access”
means being able to “readily subscribe to
that service upon request” – with no consideration of affordability. The definitions
of “unserved” and “underserved” are also
very stringent: An unserved area must have
90 percent of households without access
to even minimal broadband; in an underserved area (for last-mile access) either 50
percent of households must have no broadband access, or there must be no access to
advertised speeds of 3 Mbps downstream
(let’s hope truth-in-advertising laws are
being enforced!), or broadband penetration must be below 40 percent.
These definitions leave little hope for
upgrading many broadband networks
that most of us would consider poor, or
even for extending service on the fringes
of many service areas.
One could argue the lowest-commondenominator approach is the fairest use
of the limited funding available; setting
higher standards would result in reaching
fewer of the unserved and therefore increasing, rather than eliminating, the digital divide. Shouldn’t all of us have bread
before some of us get (subsidized) cake?
But it’s questionable whether investing in obsolete technology will help any-
one. The NOFA explicitly calls 768/200
Kbps broadband “sufficient access to
broadband service to facilitate rural economic development,” but how many jobs
will this kind of broadband really attract
to a depressed area? How many new services can service providers sell over such
networks? Will the networks support
public needs for distance education or
health care? And how long will it be before the equipment has to be replaced? In
the words of a rural telco manager I spoke
with recently, “You want to put money
into something long-term if you’re going
to start building networks. Don’t build
something you’ll have to throw away in
two or three years.”
There are still grounds for optimism.
Another $3 billion will be available in the
next two funding rounds, and the rules
can be changed in those rounds “to better achieve the agencies’ priorities.” Also,
the administration has called ARRA a
“down payment” on a larger broadband
package. So there may be more opportunities for public investment in higherspeed networks. (Though in that case,
there’s even less excuse for building obsolete networks today.)
Second, both agencies give a slight
edge to higher-bandwidth systems, and
to affordability. And NTIA says it is
looking for networks with “a clear and
affordable upgrade path.”
Finally, in recent conversations with
providers preparing applications for funding (admittedly, a very small sample), we
haven’t found anyone whose plans were
changed by the NOFA. Vendor surveys
in the spring showed many applicants
planning FTTH projects, and if the
people we’ve talked to in recent weeks are
representative, that’s still going to happen. Let’s hope NTIA and RUS see the
merits of their proposals!
| BROADBAND PROPERTIES | www.broadbandproper ties.com | July/August 2009
Masha@broadbandproperties.com
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DIRECTV and the Cyclone Design logo are registered trademarks of DIRECTV, Inc. All other trademarks and service marks are the property of their respective owners.
Table of Contents
DEPARTMENTS
COVER STORY
Editor’s Note . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
The Bandwidth Hawk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
BBP Marketplace . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
Advertiser Index. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100
Calendar. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100
IN THIS ISSUE
Broadband Properties
Top 100 Companies for 2009 | 32
Find out who’s leading the way to the fiber-connected community: Equipment vendors, network planners, construction companies, distributors, integrators, network operators, service providers
and more.
Provider Perspective
Try Opening This Door | 8
By Bryan J. Rader ■ Bandwidth Consulting LLC
What do you do after your take rate at a property maxes out? Doorto-door selling can help boost sales – if you do it right.
Owners Corner
The Bandwidth Crunch in
Student Housing – Part 2 | 10
By Henry Pye ■ RealPage
To meet skyrocketing demand for bandwidth in student housing,
owners may have to rethink their infrastructure, budgets and contracts with providers.
Why We Need More Fiber
The House Call of the 21st Century:
Telemedicine | 12
Fiber Deployment Roundup
Counting the Business Cases for Fiber | 14
By Masha Zager ■ Broadband Properties
The luxury second-home development is the “classic” setting for FTTP.
But that’s only one of many cases where fiber makes business sense.
– Digital edition bonus section: International Deployments –
Admiralty Apartments, Golden West Properties | 22
By Joe Bousquin ■ Contributing Editor, Broadband Properties
To differentiate a new rental development, Golden West gave residents a choice of three broadband providers, and prewired the units
for a possible FiOS buildout.
– Digital edition bonus section: Additional pictures–
Summit Coverage
Who’d Want Broadband Without the Internet? | 27
By David S. Isenberg ■ Freedom to Connect and Isen.com
A noted Internet researcher argues that broadband’s value isn’t in the
pipes but in what they connect us to.
Cal Cul
atin g the
Cos t savi
ngs fro
m rfo g
Top
1oo
July/Aug 2009
• Vol.30 • No.5
2009
BroadB
and Co
mpan
ies
British Invas
ion:
New FiberThrough-theSewer Tech
nology
Coming to the
US
4
By Elfed Thomas ■ i3 Group
The inventor who made “Fibrecities” possible in the UK explains
his approach to fiber deployment. Now he hopes to bring his technology to the United States.
The Desktop ONT Arrives | 90
By Bhavani Rao ■ Alcatel-Lucent
Optical network terminals in MDUs have always been problematic.
The next generation of small, indoor ONTs may offer a solution.
Texas School District Delivers
Online Learning Over Fiber | 94
By Tim Donohoe ■ MRV Communications
The school district in Mesquite, Texas, took control of its bandwidth destiny by deploying fiber to its 53 schools.
BROADBAND APPS
The Dawn of the Digital Home | 96
Property of the Month
Art director Karry Thomas gives top billing
to the Top 100.
i3 Group Brings Fiber Through the Sewers | 86
Municipal Fiber Networks
The Connected Care program could make telemedicine the norm instead of the exception – and home-based telepresence has a big role
to play.
ABOUT
THE COVER
TECHNOLOGY
By Jake Sailana ■ ZyXEL
Service providers have a new revenue opportunity in helping subscribers install and manage their home networks.
BUT WAIT…THERE’S MORE!
The Digital Edition of Broadband Properties now includes free onlineonly bonus material. International news, extra photographs and
other features are now available to supplement the print edition. Visit
www.bbpmag.com/bbponline.php to see this month’s Digital Issue.
Cable Operators
A Network Provider Calculates
the Economic Benefits of RFOG | 78
By Tom Anderson ■ Alloptic
A cable operator upgrading to RFOG collaborated with the equipment vendor to calculate the cost savings and revenue enhancements resulting from the upgrade.
–Digital edition bonus section:
Greening the Network With RFOG–
| BROADBAND PROPERTIES | www.broadbandproper ties.com | July/August 2009
FTTx Made Easy
A
B
J
F
K
C
G
D
L
H
E
Whether you are building a fiber network across a
city, campus or neighborhood,
AFL can make FTTH easy for you.
From creation of the business case to supply of end-to-end passive infrastructure
and FTTH electronics (GPON, GEPON, Point-to-Point and RF/IP Video), AFL has the
proven expertise and products to get your customers connected.
A.
B.
C.
D.
E.
F.
Fiber Management & Optical Connectivity
Fiber Distribution Hub
Indoor Gateway
Splice & Test Equipment
Distribution & Pedestal Closures
Fiber Splice Closures
www.AFLtele.com
G.
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1101010010_THE_BANDWIDTH_HAWK_0101101011
Two Paths to Public FTTH
Thanks to a court ruling, Minnesota is ripe for public FTTH.
By Steven S. Ross ■ Broadband Properties
F
inancing travails for two Minnesota builds underscore the difficulties facing municipal FTTH,
and the opportunities. In June, Minnesota courts gave final approval to a $26
million municipal FTTH build by the
city of Monticello. As the month closed,
Lake County submitted plans for a fiber
build to the Rural Utilities Service – but
not for stimulus funds. It simply applied
for a standard loan out of the Broadband
Loan Program for $34.5 million.
Lake County is a rural area in northeastern Minnesota. Its planned network
requires 800 miles of fiber to more than
7,300 homes and 500 businesses – every
premises in the area that has electricity
or telephone service now. It’s the first
project of National Public Broadband
(www.nationalpublicbroadband.org), a
nonprofit helping communities develop
and operate municipal fiber networks.
NPB’s CEO is Tim Nulty, director of
the ECFiber project awaiting funding
in Vermont. (Disclosure: I was not involved in any way with the Lake County
project and have no financial stake in it,
but I am on the NPB board.)
Rather than wait until at least December for up to 80 percent funding
through the stimulus program and then
waiting until spring to start construction,
and rather than risking a turndown in a
crowded field, Lake County elected to
simply apply for a Rural Utilities Service
broadband loan to finance most of the
network’s construction and early operating cost. If RUS approves, construction
would probably begin in 2010 with operation in 2011. There is plenty of money
available in the older loan program.
National Public Broadband would
design, build and operate the countyowned network and provide retail voice,
video and data services. But the network
would be open access, available to all
potential service providers.
6
“With the public financing that is
now available, we can serve rural areas,
not just small communities. It is a level
of market penetration that incumbents
have not been able to reach,” says NPB’s
chief financial officer, Gary Fields.
“There are many communities that
understand the importance of fiber
networks to their economic development, but they generally do not have
the expertise to develop and operate the
networks,” says Tim Nulty. “But as an
independent, nonprofit organization,
we can do that efficiently in partnership
with the community.” The application
ran 120 pages – not an easy task for a
municipality to handle.
LEGAL – AND UNETHICAL
Small, compact communities ill-served
by incumbents should indeed be prime
targets for FTTH. But in Monticello,
a city near Minneapolis with 11,000
people and 3,000 households, incumbent TDS Telecommunications was not
interested in building FTTH until the
city raised $26 million in revenue bonds
to fund a network of its own. TDS then
laid 76 miles of fiber at a cost, it says, of
roughly $7 million. This is clearly not
enough for a true FTTH build there.
Bridgewater Telephone, a local division of TDS (www.tdstelecom.com),
which is headquartered in Madison,
Wisconsin, operates small-town systems
in two dozen states and has 3,500 employees, sued to block the project, claiming that the city had no right to issue the
bonds in the first place. TDS rebuffed an
offer last fall by Monticello to partner in
building one great fiber network. After
TDS lost twice in Minnesota courts, the
state’s highest court refused to hear an
appeal. If an appeal had been allowed,
Monticello would have had to refund
investors’ money under the bonds’ own
deadline covenants.
But TDS says the money should be
refunded anyway, and has started a national public relations battle to stimulate a bondholder lawsuit. Said Drew Petersen, director of legislative affairs and
corporate communications for TDS:
“Certainly the now-obsolete feasibility study – on which the revenue bond
purchasers relied when they purchased
the city’s bonds more than a year ago –
can no longer justify the project, as that
study assumed the absence of any broadband competitor as well as the city’s ability to charge for service at higher rates
than presently offered by TDS.
“Every resident in the city presently
can receive TDS’ Internet service, via fiber, at speeds of 25 Mbps at value-based
prices.” In reality, TDS is offering DSL
service at 10 Mbps (384 Kbps upstream)
in Monticello, with satellite video. That
kind of service is marginal for economic
development. As a bandwidth hawk, I
find it ridiculous.
The real issue for TDS seems to be
philosophical: “The … lack of Supreme
Court review, which leaves in place a
ruling allowing municipalities tax-free
financing to enter into competition with
tax-paying businesses, endangers the
appropriate relationship between municipalities and private enterprise,” said
Petersen.
The record is clear, however. Throughout the court battle, the city’s government
tried to be conciliatory but TDS used the
court system in a legal but hardly ethical
manner. TDS has substantially increased
the risk for the city’s build, and shows no
signs it wants to compete fairly. Bondholders have a right to be nervous. BBP
About the Author
Steve is Corporate Editor of BBP LLC.
You can reach him at steve@broadbandproperties.com.
| BROADBAND PROPERTIES | www.broadbandproper ties.com | July/August 2009
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Provider Perspective
Try Opening This Door
Door-to-door selling isn’t just for magazines. It can be an effective sales tool
for PCOs, too, if it’s done right.
By Bryan Rader ■ Bandwidth Consulting LLC
C
able operators around the country
ask me, “When a PCO reaches its
penetration rate plateau after 30
days on an MDU property, what else can
be done to drive up subscription rates?”
“I’ve hosted parties, done two direct
marketing campaigns, and even did an
on-site incentive contest,” one marketing director told me recently. “I have
nothing left in my bag of tricks.” And
she was still 10 percent below her expected goal for this particular property.
“What should I try next?” she asked.
One of the oldest tricks in the marketing bag is door-to-door selling. In the
past 40 years, door-to-door has proven
to be a successful way to sell books,
kitchen products and magazines. In the
past few years, it has become a great way
to increase cable penetration rates.
Just ask Michael Willner, the CEO
of Insight Communications, who has
achieved the highest basic subscriber
growth in the industry over the past
three years, averaging 4 percent a year
during this time. His company has used
a very aggressive door-to-door sales campaign throughout its markets.
According to leading cable sources,
Insight has almost 200 door-to-door
sales specialists in its footprint, with
an average of 160 in the field every day.
Their goal is to generate 2.5 new subscribers (not upgrades) for every salesperson, every day. Has it worked?
Yes. The campaign has averaged
8,000 new connects per month, or about
30 percent of the business.
Will It Work in MDUs?
Will it work in an MDU environment?
Absolutely. But the approach has to be
very sensitive to a number of issues, including your property owner client, the
on-site team, and the type of property.
8
Getting clearance from your client to
begin a door-to-door campaign is very
important. They will want to know who
will be conducting the sales effort. Will
they be your employees? Will they have
identification? What hours will they be
there? How long will the effort go on?
How many folks are you bringing?
Bringing well-groomed staff members to meet with the on-site staff first
is a key component of a successful doorto-door program. The process, the promotional offer, and the expectations for
installation are important topics to address during this conversation.
Why would owners allow a cable operator to enter their communities in the
evening to “sales pitch” their residents?
Good question. Some of them won’t,
under any circumstances.
Yet many of them will, as there are
benefits for them too. First of all, a doorto-door campaign may target every
satellite dish customer on the property.
Reducing the number of unwanted (and
often unsightly) dishes throughout a
community can be positive for owners,
as it improves their aesthetics. Second,
their revenue share is directly tied to the
number of users on the property, and the
number of services each of them takes.
Finally, your promotion may be a
great offer for their customers, especially
folks who didn’t sign up at move-in.
Insight Communications reports
seeing roughly 10,000 to 15,000 revenue-generating units a month since
implementing its program. What a huge
return on investment. The company relies on training, sales experience, a good
communication program, and on using
employees rather than contractors so it
can better control the process.
A leader of a former PCO told me
he always was able to generate customers
with a door-to-door effort. “We focused
on properties that had flat-lined results,
and used this sales approach to trigger
new activity,” he said. One of his company’s secrets was offering a very aggressive incentive, and having a technician
on site to complete the install immediately. “That was most important.”
So, would that work on your underperformers? I bet it would, especially if
you targeted the sales campaign to special situations. For instance, in a property
with a 30 percent satellite penetration,
you might use a “dish buyback” incentive. A heavily Spanish community might
respond to a bilingual rep who could sell
the Spanish programming packs. And
a property with high DSL usage would
likely be attracted to a discounted broadband service at a higher speed.
Be aware of the type of property you
target for your team, as you want to be
sure it is a safe and effective effort.
Turn your door-to-door team loose.
But do it in an organized way. Insight
has proven that it can work. The right
approach in the MDU market can make
it a success for us, too. And summertime, with many new residents moving
in, can be the perfect time to “open the
door” on a new sales campaign. BBP
About the Author
Bryan Rader is CEO of Bandwidth Consulting LLC, which he founded in 2007 to
assist providers with their performance in
the multifamily market. Prior to starting
Bandwidth Consulting, he founded and
ran private cable operator MediaWorks
for 10 years. You can reach Bryan at
bryanjrader@yahoo.com or at 636-5360011. Learn more at www.bandwidth
consultingllc.com.
| BROADBAND PROPERTIES | www.broadbandproper ties.com | July/August 2009
Connecting
communities to the world...
1 piece at a time.
Hiawatha Broadband Communications Inc. builds fiber-to-thepremise networks and provides voice, video and data services to
rural American communities.
A Broadband Properties
Top 100
Broadband Company
Owners Corner
The Bandwidth Crunch in
Student Housing (Part 2)
What property owners and managers need to know if they are to continue
meeting students’ ever-growing demand for Internet bandwidth.
By Henry Pye ■ RealPage
L
ast fall saw a huge leap in bandwidth demand in student housing. Student housing owners and
managers offering bulk broadband must
now plan for increasing bandwidth and
for the related infrastructure, contract,
budget and marketing challenges.
Scalable, resilient, highly manageable delivery platforms like Ethernet
will increasingly be the only serviceable
method of providing bulk high-speed
Internet to student housing. Ethernet
has always been the most cost-effective
platform for this purpose; providing acceptable levels of high-speed Internet
access in dense user environments with
cable modems, xDSL and other methods designed for single-family use has
always been a struggle and will now
grow increasingly difficult.
Providing WiFi will be a challenge as
well. While WiFi is undoubtedly critical to any competitive community, it
should serve primarily as a supplement
to a wired Ethernet network. In very
dense environments WiFi access points
become choke points. WiFi linkages
between buildings, always problematic, will become unworkable in student housing. Increasing user speeds,
the move to streaming applications and
ever-evolving WiFi standards will hasten
the obsolescence of WiFi equipment.
Owners also need to revisit many of
their core business decisions and contract
negotiations for bulk high-speed Internet access. Bandwidth decisions always
require a delicate balance of time and
cost. Usually the owner knows bandwidth needs will increase over time, so
10
contracts typically allow for additions to
bandwidth over the contract term. However, the time between increases may now
become shorter as demand rises more
quickly. Any contract between an owner
and provider of high-speed Internet access should allow adding bandwidth as
soon as it is necessary. Of course, the
connection to the network providing the
bandwidth should also be scalable.
Contracts should also address the responsibility for maintaining and upgrading passive (fiber and copper cables) and
active infrastructure (switches, wireless
access points, and so forth). Traditionally, owners maintain passive facilities
while providers take care of active components. However, providers’ obligations
to upgrade equipment in order to keep
the property competitive and to meet
service level guarantees are often missing
from the agreement or unenforceable.
For their part, owners must recognize
that bulk high-speed Internet, specifically bandwidth, is not static. They must
budget for bandwidth increases and, as
dictated by contract, for upgrades to active and/or passive infrastructure.
OLDER CONTRACTS MAY NEED
TO BE OVERHAULED
These challenges will be toughest for
communities that negotiated their agreements some time ago. In the past, many
owners negotiated contracts for static
service levels. Second-tier providers may
not be able to meet today’s increased demands. Also, increased bandwidth and
network management will overwhelm
jerry-rigged infrastructures. Many owners will have to begin the painful process
of overhauling or replacing contracts,
infrastructures and/or providers.
Given the cost of these actions, owners should consider what speeds are required at each community. What level of
high-speed Internet access is needed to
generate traffic, close leases and enhance
retention? The answer will be different
for each community. Owners might also
consider offering residents the option of
purchasing premium upgrades for relatively low cost; this will help appease the
10 percent to 20 percent of residents who
demand the most bandwidth.
At some communities, owners may
also need to re-evaluate the value of bulk
video programming. Most student housing communities will continue to require
bulk video services for the near future.
But bulk video is becoming increasingly
complicated and expensive (see my article in the March 2009 issue of this magazine), students are downloading more
and more TV content from the Internet
and owners’ budgets are tight.
Owners cannot afford to ignore these
challenges. You must actively monitor
and manage the bulk high-speed Internet access at your communities. If you
wait until residents complain that highspeed Internet access is slow, it may be
too late and it could affect the community’s reputation. BBP
About the Author
Owners Corner is written by Henry Pye
together with industry peers. Henry is vice
president of Resident Technology Solutions
for RealPage (www.realpage.com). You can
reach him at Henry.Pye@RealPage.com.
| BROADBAND PROPERTIES | www.broadbandproper ties.com | July/August 2009
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companies
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The House Call of the
21st Century: Telemedicine
Cisco and insurance giant UnitedHealthGroup are building a national
telehealth network. Soon, it will reach into millions of patients’ homes.
T
he future of health care may be
shaped as much by the technology initiatives under way today as
by the 1,000-page legislative packages
being churned out in Washington. One
major initiative is the “Connected Care”
program that networking powerhouse
Cisco Systems and insurance provider
UnitedHealth Group have teamed up
to build.
Connected Care – to which UnitedHealthGroup has committed tens
of millions of dollars – will be the first
national telehealth network, letting patients see doctors remotely when they
can’t see them in person. Combining
audio and video technology with health
resources, the network will expand physicians’ reach into rural, urban and other
underserved areas.
Telemedicine isn’t new. Virtually
every large hospital has some kind of
program to connect specialists with outlying clinics and community hospitals,
and institutions like prisons often use
telemedicine because moving patient/inmates under guard is expensive. What’s
new is the scale: UnitedHealth Group
has nearly 600,000 doctors and 5,000
hospitals in its provider network, and
counts more than 70 million Americans
as customers. Cisco, of course, is a leader
in telepresence and other collaborative
network technologies. A program on
this scale could make telemedicine the
norm rather than the exception.
The Doctor Will See
You Now – on TV
Now, patients won’t have to be in hospitals (or jails) to experience telemedicine.
The Connected Care program will start
12
by creating telemedicine offices in easily
accessible locations: workplaces, stores,
rural community centers, even mobile
18-wheel clinics. Property owners and
developers might find that a Connected
Care center in their community is a
great differentiator for a property.
The next step will be bringing telemedicine into the home, using the television-based home telepresence solution
that Cisco expects to introduce next
year. That’s why the CEO of UnitedHealthGroup calls Connected Care the
“house call for the 21st century.”
in partnership with health education
groups so that health providers can develop best practices for using the system.
For example, the international health
education and humanitarian assistance
organization Project HOPE will use a
Connected Care mobile clinic to help
New Mexico residents obtain health
screenings and treatment for diabetes
and other chronic diseases.
Connected Care should also be a
boon to medical education. The Association of American Medical Colleges estimates that due to population growth,
UnitedHealthGroup has 70 million customers and
600,000 doctors on its rolls. Its Connected Care
program could make video-based telemedicine
the norm rather than the exception, profoundly
changing the way health care is delivered.
Connected Care is being built on an
open network, so that electronic health
records and other medical IT systems
can be easily integrated. It will support
real-time consultations with doctors,
nurses, and other health professionals,
and also let the health professionals talk
with each other. Security and privacy
are built into the system.
Will patients accept the program?
In a recent pilot project with Cisco employees in California, 90 percent of participants said they would recommend
the program to others. UnitedHealth
Group employees in Minneapolis are
preparing to participate in a similar pilot, and other tests are being performed
aging and other factors, this country is
facing a potential shortage of 159,000
primary care physicians by 2025. “Educating and training more physicians is
a long-term solution to addressing this
country’s physician shortage. Through
Connected Care, we can advance access to medicine in America and spread
clinical expertise over greater distances
today to people who are suffering from
inadequate access to care,” says Reed V.
Tuckson, M.D., executive vice president
and chief of medical affairs, UnitedHealth Group. BBP
You can read more about the
Connected Care initiative at www.ConnectedCareAmerica.com.
| BROADBAND PROPERTIES | www.broadbandproper ties.com | July/August 2009
Counting the Business Cases for Fiber
Fiber to the home-away-from-home is the perfect solution for the busy
executive who wants a few days’ break from the office. But FTTH makes business sense in many other situations.
By Masha Zager ■ Broadband Properties
T
his issue’s roundup begins with a “classic” FTTH deployment (if a decade-old technology can be said to
have a classic period) – a luxury second-home development in a remote and beautiful location. This is fiber to
the home for the folks who have everything; it lets executives and professionals get away for long weekends to play
golf and enjoy the scenery without anyone realizing they’ve
left the office.
While this kind of “technology lifestyle amenity” is increasingly rare in these belt-tightened times, there are still
plenty of other good reasons to deploy fiber. This month,
we see fiber-to-the-premises solutions being deployed to
help businesses of all kinds become more productive and
competitive – from manufacturing firms in a traditional
Midwestern business park, to mega-yacht captains docked
at a marina in Florida, to a nursing home in the Bronx, to
home-based businesses in a small Iowa town.
We see a school system bringing fiber to the desk, giving
each student the potential of having a 1 Gbps connection to
the Internet.
We see network operators replacing aging copper and coax
plant with a cost-effective and future-proof infrastructure.
And we see providers recognizing that ordinary people
in cities, suburbs, rural towns and even out in the “boonies”
are eager for the entertainment and communication options
that only fiber to the home can provide.
– MZ
INDEPENDENT
TELCOS
“Broadband Is the Lifeline”
Midvale Telephone Exchange is a
century-old, family-owned business
that originally served the small farming
community of Midvale, Idaho. In recent
years, the company has ventured further
afield, bringing phone service to previously unserved areas of four western
states. Midvale strings phone lines over
mountaintops when necessary to deliver
reliable voice and even broadband service
to customers who once had to resort to
satellite phones. It began building fiber
to the home several years ago and is currently building out an FTTH network
to provide voice and Internet access to
residents of Williamson Valley, Arizona.
Fiber’s superior speed and reduced fire
risk are both important considerations
in these rural communities.
14
The current project includes an overbuild of LV Ranch Estates, a new community whose developer originally provided communitywide wireless Internet
and telephone service. However, wireless did not offer what buyers – mostly
second-home owners – were looking for.
The developer, Peter Gooding Sr. of True
West Companies, says, “Telephone and
Internet service is one of the top concerns of prospective LV Ranch Estates
buyers. We provide water via a well on
each parcel and underground electric
service, so reliable communication was
really the last piece of the puzzle. Now,
thanks to MTE’s fiber optic network,
owners can enjoy one of the most convenient features of urban living in an un-
spoiled rural setting of stunning natural
beauty.” Second-home owners also appreciate the VoIP service available on the
fiber network because it allows them to
use the same phone number at multiple
locations. Gooding says he likes “the
prospect of working from a place like LV
Ranch Estates without anyone knowing
I’m away from the office.”
Midvale operations manager Dennis
Farrington explains that MTE “designed
the network under the assumption that
it will likely support transfer rates of as
much as 50 Mbps in the not-too-distant
future,” because, as he says, “We see
broadband becoming the lifeline for rural communities like LV Ranch Estates
in the next five to ten years.”
| BROADBAND PROPERTIES | www.broadbandproper ties.com | July/August 2009
Major FTTH Expansion
for Cinergy MetroNet
Competitive provider Cinergy MetroNet, which provides broadband services
to rural communities, is using ADC’s
solutions to expand its FTTP network
in 11 communities in Indiana. When
the rollout is completed by the end of
the 2010, Cinergy MetroNet’s thousands of subscribers will have access to
high-speed Internet, service, high-definition TV, and advanced phone services.
Kevin Stelmach, general manager and
vice president for Cinergy MetroNet,
says, “We have made a long-term commitment to the communities we serve
to work with them to bring economic
strength and vitality through new technologies and assurance that our customers receive the best and most reliable
services we can deliver.” ADC products
being deployed by Cinergy MetroNet
include OmniReach Fiber Distribution Hub (FDH) cabinets, OmniReach
Multiport Service Terminals (MSTs)
and fiber-hardened drop cables.
ADTRAN announced a series of
customer wins for its GPON solution in
the independent telco segment. Peoples
Telephone Cooperative, serving northeast Texas, selected ADTRAN’s Total
Access 5000 Multi-Service Access and
Aggregation Platform (MSAP) and 300
Series ONTs. According to central office manager Brent Tennis, the GPON
solution “will allow us to transition to
next-generation services at our pace
without worrying about network and
system capacity. This solution provides
everything we need to meet customer
demand today, and unlimited possibilities for the future.”
Additional new customers for
ADTRAN’s GPON solution included
Rice Belt Telephone in northern Arkansas, South Central Rural Telephone
Cooperative (SCRTC) in Kentucky,
NTELOS in the Appalachian region and
Diller Telephone Company in southeastern Nebraska. Rice Belt and SCRTC
plan to deliver triple-play services over IP.
SCRTC and NTELOS will be using the
ADTRAN equipment to deliver tripleplay services over both copper and fiber
access networks; Diller will offer high-
speed voice and data services today but
hopes to add video services later.
Sebastian, an ILEC based in Kerman, California, will be using Occam
Networks solutions to build out fiber to
the premises in greenfield subdivisions
at the same time it upgrades its existing
network to ADSL2+ with bonded copper pairs. Mitch Drake, VP of Sebas-
tian, comments that Occam’s platform,
which supports multiple architectures
and services, allows the company to
“efficiently manage our networks and
eliminate unnecessary cost, providing
us a huge advantage when migrating our
customers to fiber.”
Western Iowa Networks (WIN),
an ILEC and local cable provider, is get-
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July/August 2009 | www.broadbandproper ties.com | BROADBAND PROPERTIES |
15
ting ready to begin its FTTH rollout in
the city of Carroll, Iowa, using financing
from RUS. Construction in the central
business district will begin in September and progress to residential areas in
the fall. WIN plans to deliver triple-play
services under the “Evolution” brand
name, including advanced video services
(digital video, DVR, VoD) that are not
feasible with WIN’s current cable plant.
Prairie Grove Telephone Company (PGTelco), a family-owned and
-operated telephone company, has chosen Clearfield as its fiber management
supplier. PGTelco is rolling out FTTH
to some of its 8,500 customers in five exchanges in Northwest Arkansas.
PGTelco’s project originated as a
greenfield installation with the construction of new subdivisions in 2007.
The company is now exploring the possibility of updating brownfield structures in older areas of the communities
it serves. Services on the new network
will include Voice over IP and fast Internet services; IPTV may be added later.
D&P Communications, an ILEC
in southern Michigan, is also using
Clearfield cabinets for fiber management. D&P is converting 4,500 customers to FTTH, beginning in Tecumseh, Michigan, and extending through
two counties. Mid-State Consultants,
D&P’s engineering and consultant firm,
selected Clearfield as fiber management
supplier primarily for reasons of aesthetics. Says Mid-State Regional Vice President Gordy Caverly, “D&P wanted as
few above-ground cabinets as possible.
And those that were necessary, had to
be unobtrusive. The city of Tecumseh
is very happy that we selected a product
that was compact and, basically, out of
sight. And we’re happy with the craftsmanship, quality and workmanship of
the cabinets. They’re solidly built, wa-
terproof and sealed. They’re easy to set
up and install, and Clearfield has always
been ‘Johnny-on-the-spot’ – always
there when I need them.”
Hickory Telephone is using Zhone’s
new MXK platform for its GPON deployment in Hickory, a rural community
in southwestern Pennsylvania. Hickory’s
new “Aurora” service offers Internet access at speeds up to 15 Mbps/5 Mbps,
standard and high-definition video, and
digital voice. Existing Zhone customers
upgrading to the MXK for new deployments include Ketchikan Public Utilities in Alaska, Yadkin Valley Telecom in North Carolina and Stratford
Mutual Telephone Company in Iowa
(see box).
Waitsfield and Champlain Valley Telecom, a family-owned telco in
Vermont serving 20,000 customers, is
extending its fiber-to-the-home service
Stratford Mutual Goes All-Fiber
Iowa is the land of small phone companies, and Stratford Mutual Telephone Company is typical of them –
after a century as a leading institution in its hometown
of Stratford (motto: “The place to be”) it has fewer than
600 access lines in all. When it comes to technology,
however, Stratford Mutual is in the lead. The company
began experimenting with fiber to the home as early as
2005, and recently made a wholesale cutover of its old
copper plant to fiber. Now Stratford residents living as
far as 11 miles from the central office have gone from kilobit dial-up connections to digital TV, interactive voice
services and double-digit Internet speeds.
“There’s a time for everything and Stratford’s aging
copper plant was proving to be more of a liability than an
asset,” says David Fridley, VP of engineering and consulting for the Martin Group, the firm enlisted by Stratford to
help with financing, network planning and platform selection. Stratford also wanted to provide a higher-quality
video product to its subscribers.
With the help of the Martin Group, Stratford selected
a GPON solution based on Zhone’s new MXK intelligent
terabit access concentrator, which Fridley describes as
“competitive and leading edge.” In addition, Zhone’s
zNID was chosen as the customer-premises equipment
and the Tekelec 7000 Class 5 Packet Switch was selected
to replace Stratford’s old Class 5 switch. The Martin Group
also helped Stratford secure RUS funding for the project.
General manager Randy Baker says, “The platform and
software were the easy part. It was the evolution from an
16
all-copper to an all-fiber network that led to a complete
culture shift in our organization. Fiber requires a different
language, different tools and different skill sets.”
“Fiber Is Limitless”
Vance Cook, the company’s telephone network manager, explains, “Copper is a static medium and you had
to learn to work within its limits. With fiber, you can always add more services so the network is constantly
evolving. Fiber is limitless. That means you never think of
the project as done.”
Cook handled the cutovers from copper to fiber at the
subscriber sites and reports that the zNID design saved
Stratford Mutual hundreds of staff hours in installation
time. zNID uses the latest version of HomePNA, which
delivers services over coax, phone wire or Ethernet, and
it doesn’t require a bulky cable to deliver power and
alarms to the ONT. AC battery power and alarm signaling
are delivered via 19-gauge thermostat wire, reducing the
risks and costs of drilling holes through customer’s walls
to run in-home cable. “No conduit,” Cook says. “Something our technicians and customers can all appreciate.”
Keeping the community informed helped generate
support for the project. Stratford held open houses and
published op-eds in the local paper emphasizing project
milestones. It also included inserts in monthly statements
keeping customers informed about planned construction. “Community partnership is vital when you’re dig-
| BROADBAND PROPERTIES | www.broadbandproper ties.com | July/August 2009
in the town of Richmond, according to
local press. Subscribers will be upgraded
free of charge and will maintain their
current service levels.
Northwest Communications Cooperative (NCC) in North Dakota began rolling out a test FTTH project near
the town of Wildrose in 2007. This summer, according to the company’s Web
site, crews are working on an FTTH
project in Epping, where contractors
are burying fiber, installing ONTs and
back-up power supply boxes in homes
and businesses, and splicing fiber at the
premises. Customers were scheduled for
turnup throughout the summer.
New Business Services
at Optimum Lightpath
Optimum Lightpath, a fiber-to-thebusiness provider in the New York metropolitan area, has introduced a new
HD-Voice service for mid-sized and
A nursing home replaces five carriers’ T1 lines
with one fiber optic line, increases bandwidth
and saves $28,000 per year.
large businesses. Because this hosted
voice system, which uses Cisco IP phones
and delivers true high-definition voice
quality, requires less bandwidth than
standard voice protocols, it increases
the efficiency of the Ethernet-based fiber optic network. Optimum Lightpath
also announced that its customer Morningside House, a Bronx-based subsidiary
of Aging in America, is saving nearly
$28,000 per year by consolidating its
telecommunications services on a fiber
optic line. Morningside House replaced
T1 lines provided by five different carriers with Optimum Lightpath’s 50 Mbps
metro Ethernet service and 20 Mbps In-
ging up the streets,” Baker says. “Now, there’s a shared
excitement that our town has built a state-of-the-art IP
infrastructure and our network in Stratford is faster than
anything you’d find in any major city in the world.”
The town’s excitement is evidenced in the speed of
adoption. Stratford reports a hockey-stick curve on the
take rates for high-speed broadband and digital TV.
“Stratford’s new network has led many residents to start
home-based businesses,” says Brian Wilde of the Stratford Community Development Corporation. “And the TV
is great,” he adds. The school system is also installing
“Smart Desks” to give each student personal high-speed
Internet access.
Designing for the “Hulu Phenomenon”
The new MXK platform is almost as transformative for
Zhone as it was for Stratford – Steve Glapa, Zhone’s VP of
marketing and product management, calls it “one of most
significant product launches in the company’s history.”
As part of its technology roadmap process, the company tracked bandwidth demand – especially online
video and other streaming unicast traffic, which renders
the “oversubscription” model of bandwidth allocation
obsolete – and realized that forecasts were being revised
upward every year. “Even the 2009 forecast is conservative,” Glapa says, citing the “Hulu phenomenon.” And
considering that Americans still watch an average of five
hours per day of linear TV and only 10 minutes of Internet video, the potential for future growth is enormous.
As bandwidth rises, so does the need for intelligence
ternet and voice service. In addition to
reducing operating expenses, Morningside was able to add bandwidth to support its clinical database, hosted payroll
and pharmacy applications.
Competitive provider Jaguar Communications, which has been rolling
out FTTH in rural Minnesota since
receiving an RUS loan in 2006, is getting ready to deploy fiber in the town
of Hayfield and offer triple-play services
there, according to local press. The first
customers should be online by the end
of the year.
SureWest Communications, which
offers symmetrical Internet access at
speeds up to 50 Mbps, boosted connec-
in the system. At high speeds, it becomes difficult to
guarantee quality of experience – for instance, eliminating the “echo” in packet-based voice systems. “You have
to look at every packet,” Glapa says.
Looking ahead to the future, Zhone decided not to
simply upgrade its earlier platform but to design a new
one from scratch – a platform that did not assume bandwidth oversubscription, that could be easily scaled upward and that had the requisite intelligence built in.
No More Waiting in Line
This “clean sheet” approach yielded an entirely new architecture, with the cards connected in a star topology
rather than the typical bus/backplane architecture. Each
line card connects to the uplink with dedicated 10-gigabit traces, and redundant uplinks allow for graceful failure. “The original Ethernet was ‘wait your turn, hang up
and wait,’” Glapa says. “Now everyone has a dedicated
line.”
To help providers reduce capex, Zhone offers the MXK
in two widths, with the smaller box designed for small
deployments like Stratford’s. Similarly, the GPON cards
come in not only the usual four-port version but an eightport version as well, yielding significant savings per port.
“The flip side of scalability is efficiency,” Glapa points
out. For a 1,000-person town like Stratford, “one of these
[MXKs] covers the town. It’s a little ample, but think about
it in terms of a lot of headroom…There will be 1 Gbps to
the home in the future. Even in a town of 1,000 people, 1
Gbps to every schooldesk will tap out the box.”
July/August 2009 | www.broadbandproper ties.com | BROADBAND PROPERTIES |
17
tion speeds for fiber-to-the-home customers in its greater Sacramento market
with no extra cost or action required by
the customer, and said it is planning
bandwidth upgrades in its Kansas City
market for 2010. “In today’s environment, customers are understandably
searching for ways to receive more value
from their products and services,” says
Pete Drozdoff, vice president of marketing for SureWest. “This free speed upgrade enhances the Internet experience
for our customers and continues to allow us to outperform the competition
with the fastest connection speeds wherever we serve.” SureWest also launched
Caller ID on TV, which new triple-play
customers will receive automatically and
free of charge. Customers have the option to turn the Caller ID on TV feature
on or off and customize it. BBP
CABLE
COMPANIES
Broadstripe Provides GePON
Solution to Business Park
Cable provider Broadstripe, which serves customers in Michigan, Maryland, Washington and Oregon, recently launched a
fiber-based commercial offering, using Aurora Networks’ GePON solution.
Dave Harwood, Broadstripe’s regional vice president and
general manager, says, “For Broadstripe’s commercial services
offering, we set out to serve a combination of T1, high-speed
and dial-up customers including Brooks Industrial Park in
Marshall, Michigan, an established business park that was
previously receiving its business service from a competing provider. With Aurora Networks GePON solutions, we are the
only provider able to offer 10 to 100 Mbps of dedicated fiber
services to each of Brooks Industrial Park’s current customers.”
Harwood adds that Broadstripe “can now take advantage of
the huge growth opportunities available in business services by
competitively delivering what customers are demanding.”
The deployment to the industrial park includes a Virtual
Hub (VHub) equipped with Node PON technology on Broadstripe’s existing fiber infrastructure from its main headend to
the park, approximately 40 miles. New fiber was laid to the
streetside curb of each business with a SMART Media Converter installed directly in the premises to connect business
subscribers to Broadstripe’s core network. The SMART Media
Converter was designed to increase bandwidth capacity specifically for high-speed data services, allowing Broadstripe, and
other cable operators, to capitalize on business opportunities.
A Cable-Oriented Architecture
Shridhar Kulkarni, software product manager at Aurora Networks, explains that Aurora’s GePON solution is designed with
the needs of cable operators in mind. While GePON’s 20-mile
maximum doesn’t trouble telcos, which typically locate central offices closer than that to their subscribers, it presents a
problem for cable operators, which typically locate their hubs
further away. To solve this problem, Aurora designed a small
GePON optical line terminal (OLT) that fits inside a cable
node, allowing it to serve as a virtual hub, or VHub (see picture of a VHub with two GePON modules). The virtual hub
is placed in the field – it can even be strand-mounted on a telephone pole – and it supports as many as 256 subscribers on a
18
Aurora RF PON hub containing two GePON optical line terminals.
single fiber. The casing can also house additional products such
as amplifiers, passives and return path transmitters.
“This distributed architecture eliminates the single point
of failure,” Kulkarni says. “If a chassis [in a central office] goes
down, it’s taking down the whole city. The distributed solution
is more localized. Also, an outdoor solution doesn’t need as
much real estate or fiber, so the return on investment automatically improves in a substantial way.”
Dawn Emms, Aurora’s director of marketing for optical
transport solutions, adds that the greatest appeal of the Node
PON technology for Broadstripe was that it enabled the company to serve the business park without an active optical transmission network (OTN) location. If the businesses were served
with coax, an active, or powered, device would be required to
convert the signal from fiber to coax. Using passive technology
like GePON allows Broadstripe to deliver much higher bandwidth, far more cost-effectively. BBP
| BROADBAND PROPERTIES | www.broadbandproper ties.com | July/August 2009
Property
Owners
Fiber to the Yacht in Florida
Rybovich Super Yacht Marina and
Refit deployed Alloptic’s GePON solution to its 60 yacht slips and throughout its 12-acre property in West Palm
Beach, Florida. “Rybovich is known for
its world-class accommodations and service. By deploying Alloptic’s fiber optic
infrastructure across our property we
increase the value we provide to our captains and their crews,” says John Vander
Wagen, Rybovich CIO. “Prior to the Alloptic deployment our customers used
their satellite connections for day-to-day
business – which in general was expensive and slow. Today, all mega-yachts
docked at Rybovich Super Yacht Marina
and Refit can securely access our dedicated, high-speed Internet and phone
services at their slip, allowing them to
conduct business without the additional
fees of expensive satellite connections.”
Nature also factored into the decision to employ Alloptic’s fiber-optic infrastructure. “Our copper system lasted
only three years in these challenging conditions. We expect that fiber will last us
10 to 20 years and overall is much more
reliable than copper,” says Vander Wagen. By locating Alloptic’s optical network units (ONUs) in self-drying power
pedestal enclosures at each slip, Rybovich
Super Yacht Marina and Refit protects
its investment against the ever-changing
and sometimes harsh environmental
conditions. Alloptic says its GePON infrastructure is a sought-after solution in
challenging seaside environments that
face everything from high-temperature
humidity to hurricanes. BBP
Municipalities
Municipal Utilities Use Fiber for Smart Grids
EPB, the municipally owned power utility serving Chattanooga and surrounding areas of Tennessee, is starting to connect customers to its new FTTH network as of July and plans
to offer services throughout the cities of Chattanooga, East
Ridge and Red Bank by next summer. In addition to providing
residents with triple-play services, EPB will use its fiber optic
network to support a smart grid initiative. The utility recently
awarded a multiyear, multimillion-dollar contract for network
deployment and customer fulfillment services to systems integrator Adesta, which will perform services related to both the
smart grid initiative and the delivery of communications and
entertainment services.
Another smart grid initiative is being undertaken by the
city of Danville, Virginia, whose nDanville fiber optic network will be used to support the initiative. ONUG Communications, a Raleigh-based contractor, is assisting the city by
providing fiber optic splicing and related services. The new
system will use advanced sensing, communication networking
and control technologies to generate and distribute electricity
more effectively, economically and securely.
The city of Salisbury, North Carolina – one of very few
that is building municipal broadband without having operated
an electric utility first – is working with Atlantic Engineering Group to deploy fiber throughout the city. As detailed on
the city’s FTTH blog last month, AEG was installing splitter
cabinets in the field and completing construction of the underground plant. Aerial plant has presented more of a problem, as
the city doesn’t own its own poles. It has reached agreements
with Duke Energy and AT&T to place fiber on their poles, but
nearly all of the poles require some “make ready” work to make
room for the fiber, ranging from installing new riser guards
to actually swapping out the poles for taller poles. Once the
make-ready work is finished, aerial construction can begin.
KPU Telecommunications, the municipal telecom provider for Ketchikan, Alaska, will use EchoStar Satellite Services’s ViP-TV video transport service to deliver up to 42
high-definition TV channels to its IP headend. The city offers
residents ultra-high-speed broadband, TV services and Internet phone services; by the end of this summer’s construction
season, it should be nearly 50 percent finished with its citywide
buildout of fiber to the home. With the additional channels
Vendor Spotlight
ADC. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . www.adc.com
Adesta. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . www.adestagroup.com
ADTRAN. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . www.adtran.com
Alloptic. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . www.alloptic.com
Atlantic Engineering
Group . . . . . . . . . . . . . . www.atlantic-engineering.com
Aurora Networks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . www.aurora.com
Cisco Systems. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . www.cisco.com
Clearfield. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . www.clearfieldconnection.com
EchoStar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . www.echostar.com
Martin Group. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . www.martin-group.com
Mid-State Consultants. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . www.mscon.com
Occam Networks . . . . . . . . . . . www.occamnetworks.com
Onug Communications . . . . . . . www.onugsolutions.com
Zhone. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . www.zhone.com
July/August 2009 | www.broadbandproper ties.com | BROADBAND PROPERTIES |
19
from EchoStar, KPU will offer a total of 58 HD channels and
more than 140 standard-definition TV channels.
The City of Bellevue, Iowa, has completed the rollout of
its iVue fiber-to-the-home network, according to local press re-
ports. Nearly all of the city’s approximately 1,000 households
now have access to high-speed Internet, digital television and
phone services on the city’s new network. The city had previously operated an analog cable television system. BBP
RBOC
UPDATE
Verizon Swims Upstream
Faster broadband speeds – especially
upstream speeds – are now available for
Verizon’s FiOS subscribers. Verizon announced in June that it was doubling to
quadrupling the upstream connection
speeds and increasing the downstream
connection speeds of its most popular
FiOS Internet offerings. Entry-level
FiOS Internet service went from 10
Mbps downstream/2 Mbps upstream
to 15/5 Mbps, and the mid-tier offering
went from 20/5 Mbps to 25/15 Mbps.
In New York and surrounding areas, the
entry-level connection speed is 25/15
Mbps, and the mid-tier offering is 35/20
Mbps. (These offerings are available only
in bundles.)
“From grade-schoolers to grandparents, no one wants to wait for long uploads any more than they want to wait
for long downloads,” says Mike Ritter,
chief marketing officer for Verizon Telecom. “Verizon has good news for people
who want to enjoy interactive applications like video chat, quickly back up
their hard drives, upload photos and
videos to e-mail and social networking
sites, or send large files to co-workers
or clients: The ultra-fast downstream
and upstream speed you need every day
is here. It’s widely available, affordably
priced, and there are no artificial limits
placed on how much you can use.”
Verizon also launched a promotional
offer for new FiOS customers. Triple play
subscribers will receive free or discounted
Compaq Mini netbooks or Flip Ultra
camcorders – two devices specifically designed for connectivity, and, in the case
of the camcorder, upstream connectivity.
(The value of the promotion varies with
the level of service ordered.)
There’s no free lunch, however – rates
for the lower and middle tiers went up as
20
Verizon entered the content provider business
with hyper-local FIOS1 TV stations in New York
and New Jersey. It’s partnering with several news
organizations for content production.
well, indicating that Verizon is aiming
to compete on features rather than on
price, at least in the range that will appeal to most consumers.
six years, though areas with a population
density below 20 households per mile are
exempted. Fifty percent of the city has to
be built out within three years.
FiOS Goes Hyper-Local
Verizon entered the content business
with a splash, presenting new local
FiOS1 channels in New York and New
Jersey. The channels will feature “hyperlocal” content including news, traffic,
weather, high school and college sports
and profiles of local residents and events.
“FiOS1 Long Island and FiOS1 New
Jersey are all about the communities.
These FiOS1 channels will redefine the
delivery of truly local information about
people, news and what’s going on in
those areas,” says Ritter. “With industryleading partners and a cutting-edge and
energized team of mobile journalists, or
Mo-Jos, we plan to bring FiOS TV subscribers the type of programming that
matters most – targeted, timely and tailored for local communities.”
The partners Ritter refers to include
the North Shore - LIJ Health System
and other producers on Long Island,
and The Star Ledger/NJ.com, NJN
Public Television, and others in New
Jersey. The Regional News Network
(RNN) is providing news and production functions.
Finally, Verizon has reached a “tentative” agreement with the city of Pittsburgh for a TV franchise. The agreement
calls for building out the FiOS network
to all neighborhoods of the city within
AT&T Builds Out
Fiber in Indiana
AT&T has been building fiber to the
home in greenfield developments as part
of its U-verse deployment for several
years, but hasn’t been publicizing these
builds, preferring to emphasize the Uverse brand and services rather than any
particular technology. Recently, however,
the company announced a major U-verse
FTTH build to Bluestone Apartments,
a master-planned rental development in
the aptly named Greenfield, Indiana.
(The city actually dates from the 19th
century.) This is the first AT&T fiber-tothe-home development in Indiana.
The agreement with Bluestone
Apartments is part of the AT&T Connected Communities program, a strategic marketing initiative between AT&T
and regional or national builders, developers and property owners. Through
the agreement with AT&T Connected
Communities, more than 200 units in
Bluestone Apartments will receive IPbased video, high-speed Internet and
voice services, along with wireless home
or office networking at no extra cost and
unlimited access to the nation’s largest
WiFi network.
In Canada, regional incumbent Bell
Aliant, with support from the Govern-
| BROADBAND PROPERTIES | www.broadbandproper ties.com | July/August 2009
ment of New Brunswick, says it will be
the first in Canada to cover an entire city
with fiber to the home technology. Bell
Aliant is investing $60 million to serve
70,000 homes and businesses in the cities of Fredericton and Saint John with
triple-play services by mid-2010. Some
customers in Fredericton will begin receiving services as early as this year.
Karen Sheriff, president and CEO of
Bell Aliant, says, “In addition to bringing the most advanced technology to our
customers, it makes economic sense for
Bell Aliant in these markets because of
the cost advantages associated with our
virtually 100 percent aerial network infrastructure and low population density.”
The Government of New Brunswick
is renewing its strategic partnership with
Bell Aliant by extending two existing
service agreements for three years. Additionally, to ensure that New Brunswick
technology and construction companies
participate, the province is contributing
$1 million (Canadian) to the project.
In return, as part of the FTTH build,
Bell Aliant will award a total of $3 million in project-related contracts to local
businesses, delivering further economic
benefit to the province. BBP
Deployer Spotlight
North American Telcos
AT&T
www.att.com
Bell Aliant
www.aliant.ca
Cinergy MetroNet
www.cinergy
metronet.com
D&P Communications
.
www.d-pcommunications.com
Diller Telephone Company
www.diodecom.net/dillertel1.htm
Hickory Telephone
www.hky.com
Jaguar Communications
www.jaguarcommunications.com
Midvale Telephone Exchange
www.midvaletelephone.com
Northwest Communications
Cooperative
www.nccray.com
NTELOS
www.ntelos.com
Optimum Lightpath
www.optimumlightpath.com
Peoples Telephone Cooperative
www.peoplescom.net
Prairie Grove Telephone Company
www.pgtelco.com
Rice Belt Telephone
www.ricebelt.net
Sebastian
www.sebastiancorp.com
South Central Rural Telephone
Cooperative
www.scrtc.com
Stratford Mutual Telephone
Company
www.stratfordtelephone.com
SureWest Communications
www.surewest.com
Verizon Communications
www.verizon.com
Waitsfield and Champlain Valley
Telecom
www.wcvt.com
Alaska
States with fresh
deployment activity.
Western Iowa Networks
Yadkin Valley Telecom
www.win-4-u.com
www.yadtel.net
Other North American Deployers
Broadstripe
www.broadstripe.com
City of Bellevue, Iowa
www.ivuenet.com
City of Salisbury, North Carolina
www.ci.salisbury.nc.us
EPB
www.epb.net
KPU Telecommunications
www.kputel.net
nDanville
www.ndanville.net
Rybovich Super Yacht Marina and Refit www.rybovich.com
INTERNATIONAL
DEPLOYMENTS
WDM-PON deployment in Norway….FTTH in Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan…Massive fiber deployments planned in China…
Read all of these stories and more in the digital edition at
www.bbpmag.com/bbponline.php
July/August 2009 | www.broadbandproper ties.com | BROADBAND PROPERTIES |
21
Admiralty Apartments
Golden West Properties
By Joe Bousquin ■ Contributing Editor, Broadband Properties
This month’s showcase features Golden West Properties’ Admiralty Apartments in Marina del Rey, California. With
eight separate data drops running to each apartment’s media closet, Admiralty is wired for choice, and residents can
choose up to three telecom providers. Our thanks to Golden West’s Allen Hoorfar, Time Warner’s Mike Miller, Bel Air
Internet’s Terry Koosed and Verizon’s Jim Gantt for their assistance in preparing this feature.
F
or Allen Hoorfar, partner and technology manager of
West Hollywood, California -based Golden West Properties, distinguishing his apartments from the competition is critical to the firm’s success. Deep in the heart of
Southern California’s aggressive rental market, he looks for any
advantage to give his leasing consultants an edge, whether that
means a $700 cash credit at move-in, a free, 42-inch flat-screen
TV, or rebates and gift certificates to activate high-speed services at his property.
Yet no matter what incentives he offers, his competition can
usually match them simply by shopping his classified ads. So
when Golden West started developing the Admiralty, a 172unit Class A community steps away from Mother’s Beach with
views of both the ocean and the city skyline, Hoorfar decided
to add a technology amenity his competitors couldn’t easily
replicate: provider choice.
“We were on the verge of signing a bulk agreement with a
single provider, where we would throw in a free TV and free
Internet for the first year,” Hoorfar says. “But then we thought
about it and concluded that it would be better to give our residents a choice of service providers. Ultimately, we think that’s
going to help us in the long run.”
Indeed, choice is the Admiralty’s hallmark. With full triple-play services currently available from both Time Warner
Cable and Bel Air Internet, a local wireless independent ser-
22
vice provider and DIRECTV reseller, residents already have
an either-or option at move-in. And because Golden West also
negotiated with Verizon to put fiber in the walls during construction, residents should have a third choice once FiOS is
deployed in the area.
Strung with fiber, RG-6 coaxial cable, and Cat 5e Ethernet
feeds that run to 16 communication closets throughout the
property, the Admiralty is wired to the nines. Services arriving
at the dedicated in-unit media closet of each apartment may
have ridden over any of eight independent feeds: six RG-6 coaxial cable drops (four for satellite providers and two for Time
Warner’s terrestrial offerings), a Cat 5e Ethernet line pumping
Bel Air’s over-the-air data service, and Verizon’s fiber.
From that in-unit media closet, behind-the-wall RG-6 and
Cat 5e copper runs feed ready-to-go signals – voice, video or
Golden West decided to add
a technology amenity its
competitors couldn’t easily
replicate: provider choice.
| BROADBAND PROPERTIES | www.broadbandproper ties.com | July/August 2009
At the main point of entry for Time Warner and Verizon, fiber brought in
from the street is connected to an Aurora node.
Verizon’s telephone and DSL service to the building are currently provided
by traditional copper telephone cables.
data – to four or five multiport jacks in each rental home. Plus,
residents can receive either POTS or IP telephony service by
plugging a phone into the unit’s analog phone jack. It’s this mix
that gives the Admiralty’s residents an abundance of options.
“Residents will be able to pick just one of the vendors, a
mix of the three, or all three at the same time,” Hoorfar says.
“They’ll be able to do it any way they wish.”
The economic climate has put pressure on rents nationally,
and the Los Angeles area is no exception. But with a wealth of
high-speed options, Golden West has been able to offer something that can’t easily be matched in the next cycle of discounts,
incentives and markdowns. “It helps when you can offer them
a choice,” Hoorfar says. “This is just one more thing that helps
us get to close.”
floors, luxury carpets, full-size washer-dryers, ample closet and
storage space, full-length windows with custom fixtures, high
ceilings, spa-like baths and bright, open balconies.
Amenities include a clubhouse with a bar/café/bistro, billiards and a state-of-the-art theater room complete with a 120inch projection screen. The community’s business center offers both PC and Mac workstations, free common-area WiFi
connectivity and a fully furnished conference room. Individual
TVs adorn equipment in the Admiralty’s fitness center, and a
rooftop sundeck beckons residents to pay homage to Southern
California’s legendary sunshine.
Greenfield or retrofit: This is a new development. Wiring was
completed during construction phase.
Number of residential/commercial units: 172
Vital Stats
Located in the heart of Marina del Rey, California, Admiralty
Apartments overlook the calm waters of Mother’s Beach, and are
just seconds away from the sand. Lavish residences offer breathtaking views of downtown L.A., as well as the California coast.
Homes in this 172-unit, Class A apartment community
feature expansive floor plans, granite countertops, designer
stainless steel appliances, cherry wood cabinetry, hardwood
Time to deploy: Approximately one month for Time Warner
and Bel Air Internet, and approximately three months for
Verizon, due to construction scheduling and the fact that
upper floors were not yet prepped to be wired.
Time Warner sends cable connections to the gym via the Aurora Networks
Node.
Verizon telephone equipment.
Building type: Admiralty Apartments is a mid-rise project with
four resident floors, as well as ground level and a subterranean-level parking structure.
July/August 2009 | www.broadbandproper ties.com | BROADBAND PROPERTIES |
23
Verizon laid fiber to the unit
throughout the property, so that
residents will be able to receive
FiOS services as soon as they’re
available in the area.
Date services started being delivered: Time Warner and Bel
Air Internet started delivering services when the property
opened in February 2009. While Verizon currently provides traditional telephone service to the property, through
which residents can subscribe to its DSL Internet services,
it has not yet deployed its FiOS offering in the Marina del
Rey area. However, to take advantage of possible future deployment in the vicinity, it laid its own fiber throughout the
building. Residents will be able to receive FiOS services as
soon as they’re available, without any further modification
at the property.
Technology
How does fiber get to the property? Time Warner fiber originates
at its Santa Monica headend facility, running at street level
before being routed through the property’s parking structure to the main point of entry (MPOE).
Verizon’s fiber, which has been deployed to the property
and put in the walls, but is not yet activated, follows the
same path within the building. Additional conduit had to be
added and fire-caulked within the property, because all space
within the original conduit had already been consumed.
What is the distribution system inside the property? Time Warner deployed a fiber-to-the-node architecture, with the node
located in the MPOE. The fiber terminates at a Motorola
1 GHz SG4000 Modular Node, and the signal travels over
RG-6 coax cable to dedicated Time Warner termination
boxes within the four communications closets on each floor.
Jumper panels in the closets route the signal to each unit.
With these jumpers in place, service providers’ technicians don’t have to fight each other for space on the punch
panel, or face the temptation of “rewiring” their competitors’ feeds.
Once bridged via the jumper panels, Time Warner’s
signal rides coax into the apartment’s media closet before
hooking into its local area network. Coax outlets then
provide either cable television via a Motorola DCH 3200
Digital HD set-top box or DCH 3416 Dual Tuner DVR,
or Internet through a dedicated RCA, Ambit, Teryon or
Motorola DOCSIS 2.0 modem, with speeds ranging from
1.5 to 10 Mbps. Digital telephone is available on the same
feed via Ambit/Arris MTA units.
Verizon deployed a fiber-to-the-unit architecture, utilizing the same four communication closets on each floor
and a dedicated fiber run to each apartment’s media closet.
Should FiOS service become available in Marina del Rey,
24
Verizon plans to deploy single-family ONTs in each apartment’s media closet, which was designed with ready access
to AC power. From the ONT, the FiOS service will deploy
via each apartment’s internal network.
Bel Air Internet used one of the two available rooftop
access points (4 satellite drops are available) coupled with a
DIRECTV MFH-2 system to offer satellite programming.
An RF antenna provides line-of-sight wireless Internet and
telephone services to the building.
For DIRECTV programming, three rooftop dishes (for
standard, HD and international channels) provide television service to the entire building. From each dish, the signals run via coax into a dedicated communications closet
on the top floor, where they meet the DIRECTV MFH-2
module and chassis. Then they are distributed to the communication closet on each floor before being routed into
the media closet of each apartment via RG-6 coax.
In addition, Bel Air utilized the Cat 5e wiring infrastructure provided within the building to deliver Internet
services to each unit. From its RF receiver on the roof, a 40
Mbps signal runs via Cat 5e to each communications closet,
where it hits a Cisco Catalyst 2900XL/3500XL series switch
before being routed into the media closet of each apartment.
From there, residents can subscribe to symmetrical speeds
that range from 4 Mbps to 20 Mbps, provided via the Ethernet connection at the wall plates inside each unit.
Via a proprietary switch within the communications closets, Bel Air also offers over-the-air digital telephone service
to Admiralty residents, available without a converter box directly from the standard telephone jack in each apartment.
Why was this distribution architecture chosen? The distribution
architecture was chosen due to its reduced cost in cable runs
as well as maintenance simplicity. Because there are multiple communications closets on each floor, technicians can
troubleshoot and maintain the network more efficiently,
and the length of cable runs – whether fiber, RG-6, or Cat
5e – is kept to a minimum.
Are you using bend-insensitive fiber? Yes, Verizon is using Corning ClearCurve fiber.
How was the technology installed to reduce cost and protect the
aesthetic? Because the technology was installed during the
construction phase, we were able to eliminate any unsightly
aesthetic features.
Have you provided wireless signals within units, or are residents
free to set up their own wireless access points? Residents are
free to set up their own wireless access points, but through
the terms of their lease they must enable password protection for their networks. Not only does this add an additional layer of security to the building’s network, but it also
ensures that residents don’t “piggyback” on an open access
point to receive free Internet service.
When Bel Air deploys Internet service to residents, it
provides its own security-enabled wireless access point.
Time Warner offers a home networking option for
all Internet customers. This installation includes a wireless gateway and four-port router. Time Warner techni-
| BROADBAND PROPERTIES | www.broadbandproper ties.com | July/August 2009
cians install the gateway and set up a password-protected
wireless network.
the leasing office telephone system is IP-based and can be
fully configured from a computer.
How much square footage did you have to dedicate to the network
inside the building? There are 16 closets in Admiralty Apartments that house network equipment. Twelve of these are
dedicated to communications, while four others share space
with the building’s emergency battery backup equipment.
Cabling comes in from overhead and is routed to the designated provider’s equipment.
The rooms are shared by all the providers. Time Warner
Cable uses 32 square feet to mount equipment on the wall
in each telecommunications room.
How were the multiple choice capabilities set up, from a wiring
and business standpoint? Sufficient wiring was put into place
to allow multiple choice capabilities. A total of four satellite drops (which have enough bandwidth to allow for two
competing satellite providers in the future, if applicable),
two cable drops, one fiber drop, and one Cat 5e drop is
routed to each unit’s media closet.
From a business standpoint, nonexclusive marketing
agreements were put into place to allow all three services
to be offered.
Services
What services are available to residents?
Time Warner: Internet, TV, telephone
Bel Air Internet: Internet, TV, telephone
Verizon: Currently, telephone and DSL Internet. Should FiOS
become available in the area, residents will be able to subscribe to a full array of fiber-based services.
If residents have an issue or technical challenge, whom do they call?
If residents have an issue, they call the respective companies
directly.
Are there technology amenities or applications beyond the triple
play? Free wireless Internet access is provided in common
areas by Time Warner Cable.
The CCTV system for the building can be viewed from
the management office, and over the Internet. Additionally,
Business
Who owns the network? Does the property owner have “skin in
the game”? Who paid for what? The network is owned by the
providers up to their respective equipment in the communications closets. Copper runing from the communications
closets to the units belongs to the property owner. Verizon
owns the fiber up to the ONT deployment point in each
unit’s media closet.
Based on pre-set penetration benchmarks, the prop-
s
e
t
a
l
u
t
a
Congr
Broadband Properties
Magazine
For becoming the Official Corporate Host at the 2010 Broadband Properties Summit.
For more information on Verizon, visit www.verizon.com/communities.
You are cordially invited to come see Verizon at the upcoming
April 26 – 28, 2010
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 316-733-9122.
For other inquiries, call 877-588-1649, or visit www.bbpmag.com.
July/August 2009 | www.broadbandproper ties.com | BROADBAND PROPERTIES |
25
erty owner has a nominal revenue share agreement with
Time Warner.
While Golden West paid for copper wiring to the units,
all other costs incurred were paid by providers, including Verizon’s deployment of fiber to each apartment’s media closet.
Was there a door fee? Yes, a confidential door fee was paid to
the owner.
Are services automatically included in the rent or condo fees? Services are not automatically included in the rent, but a nonexclusive marketing program introduces residents to the
service choices available to them.
Who handles billing and collection? The providers bill residents
directly.
How are the services marketed, and by whom? Marketing material for all available services is provided to residents with
their lease package at signing. Residents contact the respective providers to order their chosen services.
What has the return been on this implementation, in dollars or
otherwise? The ability to offer residents a choice has been received well, and has given us marketing leverage to convert
leads to closings, which resulted in 70 percent occupancy
within the property’s first five months.
Golden West structured the deployment in this way to
allow freedom of choice for the resident. We decided this
s
e
t
a
l
u
t
a
r
Cong
Broadband
Properties
Magazine
For becoming a Silver Sponsor at the
2010 Broadband Properties Summit.
For more information on Motorola,
visit www.motorola.com.
You are cordially invited to come see Motorola
at the upcoming
April 26 – 28, 2010
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 316-733-9122.
For other inquiries, call 877-588-1649,
or visit www.bbpmag.com.
26
would give us a marketing advantage over the competition
that couldn’t be easily replicated. So far, that’s definitely
been the case.
Onsite Experience/Lessons Learned
What was the biggest challenge? Contract negotiations were the
biggest challenge in getting the deals to work. Negotiating between the multiple vendors took several months with
tight deadlines in getting the services up and running.
Dealing with all the different providers and getting them
to agree to provide their services while openly competing
against other companies took a lot of talking, and a good
bit of finesse. In the end, Golden West agreed to take a
smaller revenue share in order to give our residents choice.
We could have gotten a higher percentage had we entered
into an exclusive marketing agreement with a single provider, but we felt that would deny our residents the luxury
of choice they now have.
Additionally, because we weren’t initially partnered
with Verizon, we had to lay new conduit for the installation
of the fiber because the existing conduit was already full.
Given the fact that the conduit runs through the internal
physical firewalls in the building and had to be fire-caulked
to bring it into code, doing so took a considerable amount
of time. Lesson learned? Put in more conduit than you
think you’ll need!
Bringing the traditional copper telephone services online also took a considerable amount of effort with Verizon,
due to permitting hurdles.
What was the biggest success? The biggest success has been the
ability to offer triple-play services at the property from multiple providers. Allowing the resident to choose between the
various providers has proven to be an advantage over the
local competition, which typically offers only one service
provider for the entire complex. The response from residents has been extremely positive as almost all use all three
services simultaneously in their units.
What would you say to owners who want to deploy a similar network? What issues should they consider before they get started?
Begin planning and design early to avoid possible delays
during the construction phase. Work with the vendor to
survey the site and assess the requirements for a smooth
deployment. Hire an outside legal telecommunications attorney to draft and negotiate contracts between parties.
Also look at the various options in offering services at the
property. A bulk agreement may prove to be successful, but
it can also work against you as some residents may prefer
different services that aren’t available. BBP
Additional photographs
are available in our free
digital edition at
www.bbpmag.com/
bbponline.php
| BROADBAND PROPERTIES | www.broadbandproper ties.com | July/August 2009
Who’d Want Broadband
Without the Internet?
The value of broadband isn’t in the fast pipes, but in what they connect us
to, says a leading Internet researcher. Ignore or distort the Internet, and our
investments in broadband lose their value.
By David S. Isenberg ■ Freedom to Connect and Isen.com
David Isenberg delivered this
keynote address at the 2009
Broadband Properties Summit.
W
e communications professionals risk forgetting why
the networks we build and
run are valuable. We forget what we’re
connecting to what. We get so close
to the ducts and splices and boxes and
protocols that we lose the big picture.
Somewhere in the back of our minds, we
know that we’re building something big
and new and fundamental. We know, at
some level, there’s more than business
and economics at stake.
This talk is a 30,000-foot view of
why our work is important. I’m going to
argue that the Internet is the main value
creator here. Not our ability to digitize
everything, not high-speed networking,
not massive storage, but the Internet.
With this perspective, maybe you’ll go
back to work with a slight attitude adjustment, and maybe one or two concrete things to do.
In the big picture, we’re building
interconnectedness. We’re connecting
every person on this planet with every
other person. We’re creating new ways
to share experience. We’re building
new ways for buyers to find sellers, for
manufacturers to find raw materials, for
innovators to rub up against new ideas.
We’re creating a new means to distribute
our small planet’s limited resources.
The Unconnected World
Let’s take a step back from the ducts and
splices and boxes and protocols. Let’s go
on an armchair voyage in the opposite
direction, to a strange land…to right
here, right now, but without the Internet.
In this world we have all the technology
of today, but no Internet Protocol – that
is, there’s no packet protocol that all
proprietary networks can understand.
In this alternate reality, every form of
information can be digitized, but there’s
not necessarily a connection between all
of this information and all of the users
and services that might discover it and
use it to their advantage.
This was the world envisioned by
the movie “The President’s Analyst,”
where The Phone Company secretly ran
the world. It’s from 1967, the same year
Larry Roberts published the original
ArpaNet spec.
[A clip from the movie is at http://www.
youtube.com/watch?v=uUa3np4CKC4.]
In a world without the Internet, it’s
not clear that we’d actually have thought
transducers in our brains. But if we did,
I’d bet we couldn’t program them ourselves. I’d bet we couldn’t shut them off.
I’d bet we couldn’t decide who could receive their signals and who could not.
What would we have? We would have
super-clear telephony. We’d have cable
TV with lots and lots of channels. We’d
have lower opex and higher def. We’d
About the Author
David S. Isenberg, the author of “The Rise of the Stupid Network,” is the founder of
telecom analysis firm isen.com, a blogger at http://isen.com/blog, and the organizer
of tech policy conferences such as F2C: Freedom to Connect. You can reach him at
isen@isen.com.
July/August 2009 | www.broadbandproper ties.com | BROADBAND PROPERTIES |
27
Without the public Internet, an online presence
would be so expensive only GE, GM and
GQ could afford it, and so inaccessible they
probably wouldn’t want to pay.
probably have some kind of telephone-toTV integration so we could order from
Domino’s while we watched Gunsmoke.
Our cell phones would make really, really good phone calls…and we’d have
another half-dozen bungled attempts to
convince us that picturephones were the
next great leap forward.
Surprisingly, we might not have email. The first generation of Internet researchers discovered human-to-human
e-mail only in 1972 – the subsequent
growth of “people-to-people” applications
was a big surprise to them. Now, without
e-mail, there’d be no reason to invent the
Blackberry or the iPhone. Without the
Internet, it would be a voice, voice, voice,
voice world. This voice, voice, voice would
be expensive. Without the Internet – specifically without voice over IP – we’d still
be paying 15 cents a minute for long distance, because VocalTec would not have
commercialized VoIP, Vonage and Skype
wouldn’t exist, and even the major telcos
would not have used VoIP to destroy the
international settlement system.
Data service? Think ISDN. Actually,
think about a dozen different so-called
Integrated Services Networks, each with
its own access and login, with no good
way for one to connect to another. Metcalfe’s Law would suggest there’d be orders of magnitude less traffic overall.
Would we have search? Perhaps.
Imagine what Encyclopedia Britannica
Online would look like in a non-Wikipedia world, at a buck a lookup. Digital
photography? Perhaps, but the medium
would be paper and the biggest company
would be Kodak. What about Amazon?
EBay? YouTube? Weather.com? Google
Maps? Travelocity? Yahoo Finance?
iTunes? Twitter? Facebook? Craigslist?
Blogging? Online banking?
We wouldn’t even have Web sites.
Sure, we could probably buy some kind
of proprietary online presence, but it
would be so expensive that only GE,
28
GM and GQ could afford it, and so inaccessible they probably wouldn’t want
to pay. Web 2.0 – the ability of a single
computer to reach across the Internet
in a dozen different directions at once
to build a customized Web page on the
fly – would be worse than unavailable, it
would be unthinkable.
No Internet, No ftth
But it’s not all bad. Without the Internet,
we would still get our news from newspapers, the corner bookstore would still
be down on the corner, the Post Office
would be thriving, your friendly travel
agent would still be booking your trips,
Dan Rather would still be on TV, perverts would still get their sick pix in inconvenient plain brown wrappers, and
the NSA would not know what books I
bought at Amazon or who I e-mail with.
Tough. We lost a lot of skilled leathersmiths when they invented the horseless carriage. We’ll find ways to deal with
the Internet’s changes, too. Without the
Internet, the minor improvements in
telephony and TV certainly would not
drive the buildout of a whole new infrastructure. The best way to do telephony
would still be twisted pair. The best way
to do cable TV would be coax.
Now, I’m a huge fiber-to-the-home
enthusiast. But I’m also part of the reality-based community. So let’s face it
– even with the Internet, including Verizon’s amazingly ambitious FiOS buildout, the business case for fiber is so weak
that 96 percent of US homes still aren’t
connected to fiber. We are still in “Law
of Small Numbers” territory. The Internet is the only thing standing between
our limited success and abject failure.
When We Say “Broadband,”
We Mean “Internet”
Notice that I have not yet used the word
“broadband.”
That’s because when we say “broad-
band,” most of the time we mean “highspeed connections to the Internet.”
Without the Internet, “broadband”
is just another incremental improvement. It makes telephony and TV better.
It makes the Internet better, too. But the
key driver of all the killer apps we know
and love is the Internet, not broadband.
And, of course, the Internet is enabled
by lots of technologies – computers,
storage, software, audio compression,
video display technology, and highspeed wired and wireless networking.
Now, broadband is a very important
enabler. The United States has slower,
more expensive connections to the Internet than much of the developed world.
And that’s embarrassing to me as a US
citizen. Imagine if a quirk of US policy
caused us to have dimmer displays. That
would be a quick fix, unless the display
terminal industry demanded that we
disable the Internet in other ways before
it gave us brighter displays. Or unless
they insisted that “all your screens are
belong to us.”
High-speed transmission does not, by
itself, turn the wheel of creative destruction so central to the capitalist process.
The Internet does that. Broadband, by itself, does not fuel the rise of new companies and the destruction of old ones. The
Internet does that. Broadband by itself is
not disruptive; the Internet is. The Internet derives its disruptive quality from a
very special property: It is public.
The Internet Works
Because it is Public
The core of the Internet is a body of
simple, public agreements called RFCs,
which specify the structure of the Internet Protocol packet. These public
agreements don’t need to be ratified or
officially approved, they just need to
be widely adopted and used. The Internet’s component technologies – routing,
storage, transmission, etc. – can be improved in private. But the Internet Protocol itself is hurt by private changes,
because its very strength is its publicness. Because it is public, device makers,
application makers, content providers
and network providers can make stuff
that works together.
The result is completely unprecedented; instead of a special-purpose net-
| BROADBAND PROPERTIES | www.broadbandproper ties.com | July/August 2009
work with telephone wires on telephone
poles that connect telephones to telephone switches, or a cable network that
connects TVs to content, we have the
Internet, a network that connects any
application – love letters, music lessons,
credit card payments, doctors’ appointments, fantasy games – to any network –
wired, wireless, twisted pair, coax, fiber,
WiFi, 3G, smoke signals, carrier pigeon,
you name it. Automatically, no extra
services needed. It just works.
This allows several emergent miracles. First, the Internet grows naturally
at its edges, without a master plan. Anybody can connect their own network, as
long as the connection follows the public spec. Anybody with their own network can improve it – in private, if they
wish, as long as they follow the public
agreement that is the Internet, the result
grows the Internet.
Another miracle: The Internet lets
us innovate without asking anybody’s
permission. Got an idea? Put it on the
Internet, send it to your friends, and
maybe they’ll send it to their friends.
Another miracle: It’s a market-discovery machine. Text messaging wasn’t
new in 1972. What surprised the Internet researchers was e-mail’s popularity.
Today a band that plays Parisian café
music can discover its audience in Japan
and Louisiana and Rio.
It’s worth summarizing. The miracles
of the Internet: any app over any infrastructure, growth without central planning, innovation without permission and
market discovery. If the Internet Protocol lost its public nature, we’d risk shutting these miracles off. One of the public
agreements about the Internet Protocol
lays out a process for changing the agreements. If somebody changes their part of
the Internet in private, they put the Internet’s miracles at risk. Comcast tried to do
that by blocking BitTorrent. Fortunately,
we persuaded Comcast to stop. If it had
continued, it would have put a whole
family of Internet applications at risk,
not only for Comcast’s Internet customers, but also for everybody who interacts
with Comcast’s customers.
The Propaganda Battle
The whole fight over network neutrality is about preserving what’s valuable
about the Internet: its public-ness. The
Internet threatens the telephone business and the cable TV business. So of
course there’s a huge propaganda battle
around the Internet.
The propaganda from the telcos and
cablecos says network neutrality is about
treating every packet exactly the same,
but the Internet has never done that. The
propaganda says that network neutrality
is about regulating the Internet, but we
know that the Internet exists thanks to
the government’s ArpaNet, and subsequent wise government regulation.
In fact, the only reason telcos and cablecos exist is that there’s a whole body
of franchises and tariffs and licenses and
FCCs and PUCs keeping them in business. Cut through the propaganda. Network neutrality is about preserving the
public definition of the Internet Protocol, the structure of the Internet packet,
and the way it is processed. If there are
reasons to change the Internet Protocol,
we can do it in public – that’s part of the
Internet, too.
It’s the Internet, smart people. Your
property already has telephone and TV.
So does everybody else’s. Broadband
without the Internet isn’t worth squat.
You’re building those fast connections
to the Internet. So please, remember
that the essence of the Internet is a body
of public agreements.
Anti-network neutrality attacks on
the public nature of the Internet are
attacks on the value of the infrastructure improvements you’ve made to your
property. So you can’t be neutral on
network neutrality. Take a stand. If you
install advanced technology that makes
your property more valuable, you deserve your just rewards.
I Have a Dream…
and a Nightmare
The potential of the Internet is much,
much bigger than your property. Like
other great Americans on whose shoulders I stand, I have a dream. In my dream
the Internet becomes so capable that I
am able to be with you as intimately as I
am right now without leaving my home
in Connecticut. In my dream the Internet becomes so good that we think of the
people in Accra or Baghdad or Caracas
much as we think of the people of Albuquerque, Boston and Chicago – as “us,”
not as “them.” In my dream, the climate
change problem will be solved thanks to
trillions of smart vehicles, heaters and air
conditioners connected to the Internet
to mediate real-time auctions for energy,
carbon credits, and transportation facilities. In my dream, we discover that one
of the two billion who live on less than
dollar a day is so smart as to be another
Einstein, that another is so compassionate as to be another Gandhi, that another
is so charismatic as to be another Mandela…and we can comment on their
blogs, subscribe to their Flickr streams
and follow their Twitter tweets.
But I also have a nightmare. In my
nightmare, the telephone company has
convinced us that it needs to monitor every Internet transaction, so it can “manage” what it calls “my pipes.” Maybe it
says it needs to stop terrorism, or protect the children, or pay copyright holders. Maybe there’s a genuine emergency
– a pandemic or a nuclear attack or a
9.0 earthquake.
In my nightmare, whatever the excuse, or the precipitating real-world
event, once the telephone company
gains the ability to know which apps
are generating which packets, it begins
charging more for applications we value
more. In my nightmare, once the telephone company has some applications
that generate more revenues because
they’re subject to management and others that don’t, the former get all the newest, shiniest, fastest network upgrades
while the latter languish in what soon
becomes Yesterday’s Network.
In my nightmare, new innovations
that need the newest, fastest network,
but don’t yet have a revenue stream,
are consigned to second-class service.
Or they’re subject to lengthy engineering studies and other barriers that keep
them off the market. In other words, in
my nightmare, all but the most mundane innovation dies.
So it’s up to you. When you make
high-speed networks part of your real
estate, if you insist that these connect to
the real Internet, the unmediated, unfiltered, publicly defined Internet, you’re
part of a global miracle that’s much bigger than your property. Please ask yourself what’s valuable in the long run, and
act accordingly. BBP
July/August 2009 | www.broadbandproper ties.com | BROADBAND PROPERTIES |
29
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Building the Business
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Keynote
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Verizon Communications
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Broadband
TOP
2009
Properties
1OO
www.bbpmag.com
Our new listing includes municipal and research network providers for the
first time – along with plenty of private-sector innovators.
A BBP Staff Report
T
Broadband
TOP
2009
Properties
his year’s Top 100 includes many
familiar names – vendors that
were “present at the creation” of
fiber to the home, like Corning Cable
Systems; service providers with large
FTTH deployments, such as Verizon
and SureWest; as well as dozens of others
that have been consistently innovative in
developing new products, new methods
and new ways to provide customers with
advanced broadband services.
As always, space opens up on the list
when our top 100 companies merge with
one another (such as Enablence and Pannaway), refocus their offerings (such as
Nokia Siemens Networks), or – this year
especially – succumb to difficult market
conditions. So we’ve had an opportunity
to add some new entries. This year, for
the first time, we’ve expanded the list beyond private companies to include other
types of organizations.
We have added three municipal
FTTH providers, each of which has
been a leader in some way: UTOPIA, a
consortium of 16 Utah cities – the only
one of its kind in the United States – has
succeeded at running an open access
FTTH network, making a remarkable
turnaround after overcoming financial
and operating difficulties. Bristol Virginia Utilities has been so successful at
providing both business and residential services that it launched a consulting arm to help other municipalities do
the same thing. And Lafayette Utilities
32
1OO
System in Louisiana, which began offering FTTH services just this year, has
made extraordinary efforts to involve
citizens in the development and planning of its network, and to use the network to improve the quality of life in
its community.
We’ve also included two consortia
that operate academic research networks: Internet2 in the United States
and its Canadian equivalent, CANARIE. Internet2 is developing the infrastructure and applications that will
make tomorrow’s broadband networks
possible – and in the here and now, it
is enabling university research and K-12
education. CANARIE, too, supports
university research, and in addition it
sponsors innovations in “green computing” and demonstration projects in such
fields as customer-owned fiber.
Other new additions to the list include private companies with innovative
products that enable fiber deployments –
such as TraceSpan and ADVA Optical,
whose GPON testing and WDM-PON
technologies (respectively) were featured in last month’s “Game-Changing
FTTH Technology” section – as well
as service providers such as Smithville,
which recently launched an ambitious
fiber-to-the-home project.
CRITERIA
In selecting the Top 100, the editors
look for organizations that are advancing the cause of fiber to the premises in
one of several ways:
www.bbpmag.com
• Deploying fiber networks. We look
for large deployments, or for innovative business plans and technology
configurations.
• Helping others deploy networks by
supplying key hardware, software,
design services, construction services
and so forth.
• Introducing innovative technologies, even if the technologies have not
been commercially deployed at the
time the list is compiled. We’re always on the lookout for technologies
that change the rules – by reducing
early deployment costs, for instance,
or making builds significantly
cheaper overall.
To be listed among the Broadband
Properties Top 100, organizations may
About the Author
Our Top 100 list was researched by Marianne Cotter, Rachel Ellner and Kassandra
Kania, overseen by Editor Masha Zager, with recommendations and advice
from Corporate Editor Steve Ross. Suggestions for next year? E-mail masha@
broadbandproperties.com.
| BROADBAND PROPERTIES | www.broadbandproper ties.com | July/August 2009
be based anywhere in the world, but
must do at least some business in North
America. A few companies on last year’s
list didn’t reappear this year because
they no longer seemed to be doing business on this continent.
Corporate form and overall size are
not important. As we mentioned, several
municipal fiber network operators and
two nonprofit research network operators are on this year’s list. Though individuals are not eligible, companies with
as few as three full-time employees have
been selected in the past; others on the
list are giant multinational companies.
Some companies on the list are entirely
focused on fiber to the premises, but
most deliver or support a mix of broadband technologies. For some, such as
Tetra Tech, broadband represents only
a small part of their overall business –
but the issue for us isn’t how important
broadband is to them, but how important they are to advancing broadband.
Because more than 600 organizations are deploying FTTH now, deployers must either be rolling out a great deal
of fiber or showing business innovation
on the fiber front to make the cut. For
example, Connexion Technologies has
Company
TOP 100 AT A GLANCE
High-Speed Broadband Providers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Private Cable Operators and Fiber Optic Amenity Providers. . . . . . . .
Network Testing, Monitoring and Management Services. . . . . . . . . . .
Video Programming Aggregators. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Network Planning, Design, Engineering, Construction. . . . . . . . . . . . .
Fiber-to-the-Home Electronics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Customer Premises Equipment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Fiber Management. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Fiber and Fiber Cable. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Network Management Solutions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Test and Measurement Equipment. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
successfully responded to the downturn
in new housing construction by developing an expertise in retrofitting multifamily properties with fiber.
We publish a separate listing for
distributors later in the year. But several distributors such as AMT, KGP
Logistics, Graybar, Pace International,
Multicom and Toner Cable Equipment
make the Top 100 as well, by offering
VAR services and particularly compelling product lines – or even by developing their own products.
Web Address
Phone
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MAKING A DIFFERENCE
For us, the key tiebreaker question, as
always, was this: Will this company
make a difference in the fiber broadband
industry in the coming year? To put it
another way: Would the industry suffer
if this company did not exist?
Judge for yourself. And let us know
about organizations – large and small –
that you think might make a difference
a year from now. Your nominations have
led us to a number of companies we might
not otherwise have known about. BBP
Description
3M Company/Communication www.3M.com/telecom
800-426-8688 Interconnection, fiber management and
Markets Divisionfacilities protection products for broadband networks
A-D Technologies
Actiontec Electronics
www.adtechnologies.com
www.actiontec.com
800-847-7661Materials and equipment for installation and protection of telecom and other
cables
408-752-7700
Broadband customer-premises equipment
ADC
www.adc.com
952-938-8080; Fiber and copper connectivity products,
800-366-3889structured cabling solutions, wireless
equipment, professional services
Adesta
402-233-7700Design, construction and maintenance of
communications networks
ADTRAN
ADVA Optical
www.adestagroup.com
www.adtran.com
256-963-8000Solutions for broadband access, outside
plant, carrier Ethernet, optical access,
mobile backhaul and network management
www.advaoptical.comOptical+Ethernet systems for long-haul,
metro core, backhaul and access networking, including WDM-PON
July/August 2009 | www.broadbandproper ties.com | BROADBAND PROPERTIES |
33
Company
Web Address
Phone
Description
Advanced Media Technologies
www.amt.com
954-427-5711; Distributor of fiber optic transmission
888-293-5856equipment, headend, IP & QAM
set-tops, cable modems
AFL Telecommunications
www.afltele.com
864-433-0333; System integration including FTTx
800-235-3423electronics, outside plant, fiber optic
cable, video solutions, wireless, network
management platforms, fusion splicers
and test equipment, training
Alcatel-Lucent
www.alcatel-lucent.com
908-582-3000Fiber and copper access equipment,
IPTV solutions, network management
tools, fiber cable, connecting hardware
and accessories
www.afop.com 408-736-6900Fiber optic components and integrated
modules
www.alliedtelesis.com
408-519-8700Broadband access equipment including
GePON, active Ethernet, wireless
Alliance Fiber Optic Products
Allied Telesis
Alloptic
www.alloptic.com
925-245-7600; 866-255-6784
Alpha Technologies
360-647-2360Fiber-to-the-home powering options
for single-family, multiple-dwelling and
small office-home office (SOHO) premises
www.alpha.com
Astec Underground
www.astecunderground.com
865-408-2100; 800-527-6020
AT&T, AT&T Connected www.att.com/communities
888-899-9048
Communities Fiber access equipment including RF
Over Glass (RFOG) and GePON
Trenchers, vibratory plows and
directional drilling equipment
Voice, video, data and wireless services
for residential and business customers
Atlantic Engineering Group
www.atlantic-
706-654-2298
Fiber optic design, engineering,
engineering.comconstruction, technical services and
construction management
Aurora Networks
www.aurora.com
408-235-7000Products supporting cable providers’
migration to advanced HFC, fiber deep
and FTTH networks
Blonder Tongue Laboratories
www.blondertongue.com
732-679-4000; 800-523-6049
Bristol Virginia Utilities
276-669-4112Broadband services over an FTTP network; broadband consulting
Calient Networks www.bvu-optinet.com
www.calient.net
Headend equipment, encoders,
systems design and engineering
408-232-6400Automated fiber optic cross-connect
systems
Calix
www.calix.com
877-766-3500; Multiservice access platforms and
707-766-3000software; FTTP and Ethernet equipment; enclosures
CANARIE
613-943-5454Operation of an advanced research network; research and development related
to high-performance networking
www.canarie.ca
Canon Broadcast and www.canobeam.com
Communications
34
201-807-3300; 800-321-4388
Free space optics
| BROADBAND PROPERTIES | www.broadbandproper ties.com | July/August 2009
Company
Charles Industries
Web Address
www.charlesindustries.com
Phone
847-806-6300Fiber optic distribution pedestals and
enclosures
Cisco Systems
www.cisco.com
770-236-5000
Clearfield CommScope
Connexion Technologies
Description
Fiber access equipment, set-top boxes, cable modems, headends, network management systems
www.clearfieldconnection.com 763-476-6866Fiber distribution systems and associated
components
www.commscope.com
800-982-1708Fiber enclosures, HFC cable, fiber optic
and wireless integration products
www.connexiontechnologies.net 919-535-7329Construction and operation of FTTH
networks, management of service providers
Corning/Corning Cable Systems
www.corning.com;
828-901-5000
Optical fiber, optical fiber cable, fiber
www.corningcablesystems.comcabinets and splitters, fiber connectors,
splice and test equipment
Design Nine
www.designnine.com
DIRECTV
www.directv.com
Dish Network
Ditch Witch
commercial.dishnetwork.com
www.ditchwitch.com
540-951-4400Broadband planning, design and project
management
888-777-2454Satellite TV solutions for residential
(including multifamily) and business
customers
800-454-0843Satellite TV solutions for business, hospitality and multifamily housing
800-654-6481
Construction equipment for laying fiber
Draka Communications - www.drakaamericas.com
800-879-9862
Americas
Optical fiber, cabling and connectivity
solutions
Emerson Network Power
www.emerson
networkpower.com
440-246-6999; 800-800-1280
Outside plant enclosures and equipment,
power systems and turnkey services
Enablence Technologies
www.enablence.com
613-270-7860 Fiber access equipment, PLC-based
FTTH triplexers and diplexers
Ericsson
www.ericsson.com/us
972-583-0000Fiber and copper access equipment,
cables and interconnect products, network management tools, switches, IPTV
middleware
ETI Software Solutions www.etisoftware.com
770-242-3620Software for billing and provisioning,
prepaid subscriber services, and ad insertion
EXFO
www.exfo.com
418-683-0211; 800-663-3936
Telecom test and measurement solutions
FiberZone Networks
www.fiberzone-networks.com
301-941-1928
Automated fiber management systems
Finley Engineering
www.fecinc.com
417-682-5531
Network design and engineering services
Foxcom
www.foxcom.com 609-514-1800 Broadband fiber optic MDU distribution
systems, satellite signal transport over
fiber
Graybar
www.graybar.com
800-GRAYBAR
(472-9227)
Distributor of fiber connectivity and test equipment, VAR services
July/August 2009 | www.broadbandproper ties.com | BROADBAND PROPERTIES |
35
Company
Web Address
Great Lakes Data Systems
www.glds.com
Greenfield Communications
GVTC
Phone
Description
800-882-7950Billing and provisioning software for
video and broadband services
www.egreenfield.com
949-248-8898FTTH design, construction and service
provision
www.gvtc.com
800-367-4882Voice, data, video and security services
over a high-speed network
Harmonic
www.harmonicinc.com
408-542-2500; 800-788-1330
Digital video and fiber optic solutions
Hiawatha Broadband
www.hbci.com
888-474-9995
Communications
Voice, video, data and wireless services
over high-speed networks
Hitachi Communication
Technologies America
www.hitachi-cta.com
770-446-8820
Fiber access solutions including GPON, RF Over Glass (RFOG) and GePON; wireless infrastructure products
IneoQuest
InfiniSys Electronic Architects
Internet2
JDSU
KGP Logistics
Leviton Manufacturing
LTS Group
LUS Fiber
Martin Group
MetaSwitch
Michels Corporation
Montclair Fiber Optics
www.ineoquest.com
508-339-2497Digital video quality assurance technology
www.electronicarchitect.com
386-236-1500Multifamily network design, engineering, assessment, planning, integration
www.internet2.edu
734-913-4250Research and development of new networking technologies
www.jdsu.com
408-546-5000Fiber optic communications components
and testing equipment
www.kgplogistics.com
800-755-3004Value-added distributor of outside plant,
central office, transmission, customerpremises and broadband products
www.leviton.com
718-229-4040Premises wiring, outside plant, central
office solutions and home automation
products
www.LTSCompany.com; 858-566-6030
Development, design, deployment,
www.mycomspan.com; maintenance and operation of fiber-towww.ledcor.comthe-premises and wireless communications networks
www.lus.org;www.lusfiber.com 337-993-4237Voice, video and data services delivered
over an FTTH network
www.martin-group.com
877-996-9646BSS/OSS solutions, business and engineering services
www.metaswitch.com
510-748-8230Softswitch, application suite, network
management system and subscriber interface
www.michels.us
920-583-3132Fiber optic network planning, design and
construction
www.montclairfiber.com
608-831-4440Optical splitters, CWDMs, WDMs and
amplifiers
Motorola
www.motorola.com
888-944-HELP; Fiber access equipment including GPON 866-515-5825
and RFOG; metro WiFi, WiMAX, LTE
solutions; modems; home networking
36
| BROADBAND PROPERTIES | www.broadbandproper ties.com | July/August 2009
Company
Web Address
Multicom
www.multicominc.com
800-423-2594Distributor of broadband products for
FTTx, MFH2 and the digital transition;
design and VoIP services
Multilink
www.multilinkone.com
440-366-6966Network power supplies, enclosures and
cabinets, fiber distribution, cable management, enclosures, raceways
www.occamnetworks.com
805-692-2900IP- and Ethernet-based Broadband Loop
Carrier and related fiber and copper access equipment
Occam Networks
Phone
Description
OFS www.ofsoptics.com
770-798-5555; Optical fiber, optical cable, fiber
888-342-3743management and connectivity products
for homes, businesses and MDUs, splicers, network design services
On Trac
www.ontracinc.net
423-317-0009FTTx consulting, design and installation
services
Optelian
www.optelian.com
877-225-9428; Optical transport systems for access,
770-690-9575metro and regional networks, test equipment
Optical Cable Corporation
www.occfiber.com
540-265-0690Fiber optic and copper cabling and connectivity solutions
Pace International
www.paceintl.com
507-424-4900; Products and services for commercial800-444-7223grade satellite TV, cable TV, home theater and audio
Pacific Broadband Networks Preformed Line Products
www.pbnglobal.com; 703-579-6777
Ethernet and RF optical products to
www.pbnamericas.comsupport FTTx and HFC; network design, construction and maintenance
www.preformed.com
440-461-5200Cable anchoring and control hardware
and systems, fiber optic and copper splice
closures, high-speed cross-connect devices
Prysmian
www.prysmian.com
803-951-4800; 800-713-5312
Quanta Services
713-629-7600Design, construction, installation and
maintenance of broadband fiber optic,
copper, coaxial cable and wireless networks
Senko Advanced Components
Smithville
www.quantaservices.com
www.senko.com
Optical fibers and telecommunication
cables
508-481-9999Fiber distribution and connectivity
equipment
www.smithville.net; 812-876-2211
Residential broadband services and fiber
www.smithvilledigital.netconnectivity for businesses and government agencies
Spirent Communications
www.spirent.com
408-752-7100 Tools for remote and field testing of nextgeneration networks
Steeplechase Networks www.scnets.com
413-229-0030Network planning and management,
application aggregation
Sumitomo Electric Lightwave
www.sumitomoelectric.com
919-541-8100; Optical fiber cable, fiber management,
800-358-7378cable assemblies, fusion splicers, test
equipment, interconnect assemblies and
components
July/August 2009 | www.broadbandproper ties.com | BROADBAND PROPERTIES |
37
Company
SureWest Communications
Suttle
Web Address
Phone
Description
www.surewest.com
866-787-3937Digital TV, high-speed Internet access,
voice and security services
www.suttleonline.com
800-852-8662Structured cabling solutions; enclosures
and connectors for voice, data and video
equipment
Team Fishel
www.teamfishel.com
614-274-8100; 800-347-4351
Utility construction and network
installation services
Telco Systems
www.telco.com
800-227-0937Fiber access and Carrier Ethernet
solutions
Telect
www.telect.com
800-551-4567Network power management, outdoor
enclosures, optical connectivity, cables
and patch cords, cable management,
home networking
Tellabs
www.tellabs.com
630-798-8800Transport and access solutions including
FTTH, digital cross-connects, network
management
TeraSpan
www.teraspan.com
877-VI-FIBERMicro-trenching solutions for fiber optic
deployment
Tetra Tech
www.tetratech.com 626-351-4664 Network assessment and business planning, program and project management,
property rights acquisition, zoning and
permitting, design and engineering,
operations and maintenance
Toner Cable Equipment
www.tonercable.com 215-675-2053; Distributor of video distribution
800-523-5947equipment, fiber optic and coax cable,
fiber links and systems, passives,
connectors, tools, test equipment,
amplifiers
TraceSpan Communications
734-846-0549
www.tracespan.com
Monitoring and analysis systems
TT Technologies
www.tttechnologies.com 800-533-2078 Trenchless equipment including piercing
tools, guided boring tools, pipe bursting
systems, winches, drills
Tyco
www.tycoelectronics.com 610-893-9800Fiber optic cabling and the complete
range of FTTH equipment between the
optical line terminal and optical network
terminal
UTOPIA
www.utopianet.org
801-613-3800Deployment and operation of an open
access FTTP network
Verizon Communications, www.verizon.com/
Verizon Enhanced
communities
Communities
FiOS telecommunications services,
including TV, Internet and phone,
delivered over Verizon’s all-fiber network
Vermeer Corporation
www.vermeer.com 641-628-3141; Horizontal directional drilling
888-837-6337equipment, utility and pedestrian trenchers and plows
Westek Electronics
800-526-2673Telecom test and measurement test
cords, patch and hardwire cable
connectivity
38
www.westek.com
| BROADBAND PROPERTIES | www.broadbandproper ties.com | July/August 2009
Company
Windstream Communications
Web Address
www.windstream.com
Phone
Description
866-961-9463Voice, data and digital TV services
Zhone
www.zhone.com
510-777-7000; Multiservice broadband access
877-946-6320equipment integrating FTTx, Ethernet
in the First Mile and wireless access
technologies
Zoomy Communications
970-928-7722Design, engineering, planning, project
management, construction management,
operation and maintenance of FTTH
networks
www.zoomyco.com
ZyXEL Communications Corp
www.us.zyxel.com
714-632-0882; Fiber access equipment; digital home
800-255-4101equipment; DSL, WiFi and WiMAX
electronics; Ethernet switches; VoIP
equipment
“Operators are continuing to evolve their network capacity to match
the appetite of their subscribers for high-speed data, VoD and the
growing quantities of high-definition content.”
– John Dahlquist, VP Marketing, Aurora Networks
Advanced Broadband for Ethernet Delivery:
Innovative Solutions for Broadband Stimulus Projects
Networks are being constructed for the sole purpose
of providing broadband delivery for end users as
specified in the Broadband Stimulus legislation.
The dominant traffic type has become data but the
ability to transport voice, video, and data remain the
challenge for integrated architectures. The multiservice
capabilities of the ADTRAN® Total Access 5000, coupled
with the NetVanta® products, allow the deployment of an
advanced packet network infrastructure that is capable of
delivering a host of services including POTS, DSL, and PON
across a pure Ethernet core.
Total Access® 5000
Multi-service
Access Platform
This scalable architecture allows carriers to use the
ADTRAN solutions to economically address both legacy and
next-generation services while providing a seamless path
toward a converged network.
What does Broadband stimulus mean for you?
Visit the Broadband Stimulus Advisor at
www.adtran.com/stimulus
Copyright © 2009 ADTRAN, Inc. All rights reserved. ADTRAN, Total Access and NetVanta are registered trademarks of ADTRAN, Inc. CN9115A090109BP
July/August 2009 | www.broadbandproper ties.com | BROADBAND PROPERTIES |
39
3M Company/Communication Markets Division
www.3M.com/telecom
800-426-8688
Key Products: Interconnection, fiber management and
facilities protection products for broadband networks
Summary: With more than 40 years in the telecommunications
industry, 3M Communication Markets Division offers a suite of
scalable solutions to communications service providers around
the world, ranging from underground and buried plant to the
central office and customer premises. 3M systems optimize network testing, construction, locating and maintenance for faster,
more reliable high-bandwidth transmissions; enable physical
media-layer capabilities for FTTP and DSL deployments from
central office to customer premises; and deliver fiber optic technologies to leverage existing infrastructure or install new networks. Recent product releases include the SLiC Fiber Aerial
Terminal Closure 530 for factory-terminated external cable assembly module (ECAM) FD drop; the SLiC Fiber Aerial Terminal Closure 530 with Internal Drop Termination for direct
splice drops; the Fiber Dome Closure FDC 10S for protecting fiber splice joints; the Quick Connect System 2810, an insulation
displacement connector termination system; and the Ladder Kit
710/MS2-TMK-LK for line-splicing operations in aerial applications. The Communication Markets Division also introduced
new fiber distribution boxes and terminals for service providers
installing FTTH networks in multi-dwelling units (MDUs).
3M’s revenue for 2008 was $25.3 billion; the Communication
Markets Division is headquartered in Austin, Texas.
A-D Technologies
www.adtechnologies.com
800-847-7661
Key Products: Integrated system of materials and equipment
for installation and protection of power, CATV, data
communications, electrical and telecom cables
Summary: A-D Technologies (formed from a merger of DuraLine and ARNCO) supplies fiber optic conduit to companies
in the telecom, cable TV, power and other markets. The com-
pany’s customers include AT&T, Cablevision, Qwest, Telmex,
Time Warner Cable and Verizon. Based in Knoxville, Tennessee, and employing about 400 people, A-D Technologies
operates manufacturing plants in the US, India, Mexico and
the Czech Republic, and sells its products in more than 30
countries. In 1981 Dura-Line became the first manufacturer
to develop a duct for the installation and protection of fiber
optic cables, and in 2004 it introduced a complete line of fiber
optic microduct products. A-D Technologies provides infrastructure solutions for water, gas and power utilities in addition
to telecommunications, and is committed to addressing new
applications of nonmetallic conduit. Recent products include
Pinpoint, an HDPE resin locatable conduit.
Actiontec Electronics
www.actiontec.com
408-752-7700
Key Products: Broadband customer-premises equipment
Summary: Actiontec Electronics develops broadband connectivity solutions for communications, entertainment, home
management and more. Offerings range from IPTV-capable
broadband home gateways to DSL modems, wireless networking devices, routers and digital entertainment devices.
The company designs its carrier-class products to be easy to
install, manage and use, and sells them through both retail
channels and broadband service providers. Actiontec’s inhome broadband networking router is the basis of the digital
home architecture for Verizon’s FTTH deployment, providing connectivity at speeds of up to 100 Mbps and supporting remote management and troubleshooting. In 2008, the
company introduced new DSL gateways intended to lower
operating expenses for Tier 2 and 3 providers. Actiontec
also unveiled its environmentally friendly DSL modem at
NXTcomm08. In early 2009, in conjunction with Entropic
Communications, the company debuted the Actiontec MoCA
Network Adapter, a wired home networking alternative for
home theater installers. Actiontec also launched new Ethernetover-Coax MoCA and HomePNA Network Adapters, which
enable broadband connection to set-top boxes and other Inter-
“For the fiber-to-the-home industry, the American Recovery and
Reinvestment Act of 2009 offers a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to bring
connectivity vitality to all of the country. It is incumbent upon all of us
who work in this space to make certain we get it right!”
– Gary Evans, President and CEO,
Hiawatha Broadband Communications
40
| BROADBAND PROPERTIES | www.broadbandproper ties.com | July/August 2009
net-ready entertainment devices using existing coaxial cable.
Founded in 1993, Actiontec is headquartered in Sunnyvale,
California, and maintains branch offices in Colorado Springs,
Colorado; Shanghai, China; and Taipei, Taiwan. The company
has more than 200 employees.
ADC
www.adc.com
952-938-8080; 800-366-3889
Key Products: Fiber and copper connectivity products,
structured cabling solutions, wireless equipment and
professional services
Summary: Communications service providers around the
world use ADC products to deliver high-speed, high-quality
video, data and voice services to consumers and businesses. The
company’s network infrastructure solutions and services include OmniReach FTTx and Next Generation Network Fiber
solutions supporting fiber-to-the-premises networks for central
office, distribution, access and MDU/CPE applications. The
TrueNet portfolio provides copper and fiber cable, connectivity
and cable management solutions for data centers and local area
networks. The IP-based wireless portfolio includes InterReach
in-building solutions and FlexWave outdoor solutions for coverage and capacity in places where carriers and enterprises have
difficulty delivering wireless voice and data services to their
customers. ADC employs about 9,500 professionals worldwide,
holds thousands of patents, and had sales of $1.46 billion in
fiscal year 2008. Headquartered in Minneapolis, the company
has sales in more than 130 countries and occupies facilities in
Australia, Canada, China, Czech Republic, France, Germany,
Hong Kong, India, Japan, Mexico, Russia, Singapore, South
Africa and the United Kingdom as well as the United States.
“During periods of economic
slowdown, there are certain
industries that are positioned
and poised to realize significant
growth opportunities. I believe
broadband and fiber optic
communications is one
of those industries.”
– Mike Powers, President and CEO,
Greenfield Communications
East. The company maintains 12 regional offices throughout the
US. Adesta specializes in last-mile and broadband solutions for
ILECs, CLECs, utilities, municipalities, large integration firms
and rural associations. Customers include Maryland Broadband
Cooperative, Mid-Atlantic Broadband Cooperative, Five College Net, Northern Enterprises/North-Link, CBN Connect,
Boulder Valley (CO) School District, Colorado Springs School
District #11, Chicago Transit Authority, Connecticut Telecommunication System and the State of Iowa. Adesta’s revenue in
2008 was $92 million and its employee count was 375.
ADTRAN
www.adtran.com
256-963-8000
Key Products: Solutions for FTTP, FTTN, FTTC, DSL,
carrier Ethernet, mobile backhaul and IP business
networks
Adesta
www.adestagroup.com
402-233-7700
Key Products: Design, construction and maintenance of
stand-alone or integrated communications networks and
electronic security systems
Summary: Headquartered in Omaha, Nebraska, Adesta is a
systems integrator and project management company for communications networks and security systems. The company
specializes in the design, implementation and maintenance of
communications networks and infrastructure for public and
private customers. Adesta has deployed more than 2 million
miles of fiber in more than 150 metropolitan and rural areas
and completed over 1,000 electronic security systems in the
United States, Asia, Europe, Central America and the Middle
Summary: Founded in 1985, ADTRAN is a global provider
of networking and communications equipment for service providers and enterprises. With a portfolio of more than 1,700
products, ADTRAN, headquartered in Huntsville, Alabama,
is equipped to address almost every networking need from
carrier-class voice, video, and Ethernet services delivery to
business-class routing, switching, IP telephony, network monitoring and management. ADTRAN solutions are designed to
minimize both initial and ongoing expenses, resulting in lower
total cost of ownership and an accelerated return on investment. The company has approximately 1,600 employees, and
sales for 2008 were approximately $501 million.
July/August 2009 | www.broadbandproper ties.com | BROADBAND PROPERTIES |
41
ADVA Optical
www.advaoptical.com
Key Products: Optical+Ethernet systems for long-haul, metro
core, backhaul and access networking, including WDMPON
Summary: ADVA Optical Networking is a global provider
of telecommunications equipment specializing in carrier and
enterprise Ethernet optical transport. It provides solutions for
telecommunications service providers, financial institutions,
health care, government and research/education campus networks. Products include solutions for carriers building metro
fiber rings; metro and regional core networks; access backhaul
networks; and cellular backhaul. Globally, ADVA Optical Networking has a strong business delivering Ethernet demarcation
technology for business services along with Reconfigurable
Optical Add Drop Multiplexer (ROADM) functionality for
triple-play backhaul and storage data center connectivity. The
FSP 150CC-825, which provides gigabit Ethernet over fiber, is
designed for delivering retail Ethernet services to businesses; the
FSP 3000 WDM-PON solution, introduced last fall, provides
high-bandwidth, cost-effective fiber-to-the-building connectivity for both residential and business applications. After more
than 15 years in the industry, ADVA Optical Networking is a
trusted partner to more than 200 carriers and 10,000 enterprises
around the world. ADVA Optical Networking markets and sells
its products worldwide through a dedicated direct sales force,
OEMs, value-added resellers and systems integrators. Trading
publicly in Europe, ADVA Optical Networking reported 2008
revenues of about $280 million (218 million euro).
Advanced Media Technologies (AMT)
www.amt.com
954-427-5711; 888-293-5856
Key Products: Fiber optic transmission equipment, headends,
IP and QAM set-top boxes, cable modems
Summary: Advanced Media Technologies (AMT) is a CATV
and broadband electronic equipment provider. As a value-added reseller of high-performance products from the world’s most
recognized manufacturers, AMT targets emerging technology
applications in broadband with a complete line of products for
CATV, IPTV and FTTH. AMT’s product offerings include
many of the industry’s leading manufacturers such as Motorola, Amino, Blonder Tongue, Pacific Broadband Networks,
EGT, RGB Networks, Adtec, Drake, Olson Technology and
Emcore. AMT customers include major MSOs in the United
States and Latin America as well as telcos, PCOs and entertainment and multimedia content delivery companies around
the world. Started in 1985 as DX Communications, AMT has
a large staff of industry veterans. Located in Deerfield Beach,
Florida, Advanced Media Technologies Inc. is a wholly owned
subsidiary of ITOCHU International, the North American
subsidiary of ITOCHU Corporation of Japan.
42
High-Speed Broadband Providers
From among the thousands of great ISPs in North
America, these firms have shown particular vision in
expanding residential access to higher-speed broadband. Wireline operators listed here are offering 15
Mbps or higher (sometimes much higher) Internet
downstream speeds in at least some markets. Satellite and wireless providers are bringing the benefits
of broadband to areas unserved by other broadband
providers. BBP Top 100 companies are in bold.
Company Name AT&T Bright House Networks Bristol Virginia Utilities
Broadweave Networks Cablevision
CenturyLink (merger
of CenturyTel and EMBARQ)
Web Address
www.att.com
www.brighthouse.com
www.bvu-optinet.com
www.broadweave.com
www.cablevision.com
www.centurytel.com
Charter Communications www.charter.com
ClearWire
www.clearwire.com
Comcast
www.comcast.com
Connexion Technologies www.cnxntech.com
Cox Communications www.cox.com
EATEL
www.eatel.com
Greenfield
Communications
www.egreenfield.com
GVTC
www.gvtc.com
Hiawatha Broadband
Communications www.hbci.com
HughesNet
www.hughesnet.com
Insight Communications
www.insight-com.com
LTS Group/ComSpanUSA www.comspanusa.net
LUS Fiber
www.lusfiber.com
Mediacom
www.mediacomcc.com
Paxio www.paxio.com
Qwest
www.qwest.com
RCN
www.rcn.com
Suddenlink
Communications
www.suddenlink.com
Smithville
www.smithville.net
SureWest www.surewest.com
Time Warner Cable www.timewarnercable.com
UTOPIA
www.utopianet.org
Verizon
Communications
www.verizon.com/fios
Westel Fiber
www.westelfiber.com
WildBlue www.wildblue.com
Wilson, NC Greenlight
www.greenlightnc.com
Windstream
Communications www.windstream.com
| BROADBAND PROPERTIES | www.broadbandproper ties.com | July/August 2009
“Network operators find themselves dealing with rapidly increasing
quantities of fiber, particularly in the access and metro regions of
the network. Network operators are actively seeking the benefits of
automation to deal with the expanding fiber infrastructure. At the same
time, they insist on retaining the basic reliability and performance
characteristics of manual connectivity.”
– Sandy Roskes, VP Marketing and Business Development, FiberZone
AFL Telecommunications
www.afltele.com
864-433-0333; 800-235-3423
Alcatel-Lucent
www.alcatel-lucent.com
908-582-3000
Key Products: FTTx electronics (PON, point-to-point,
and DIRECTV MFH3), wireless solutions, network
management platforms, fiber optic cable, fiber and copper
interconnect products, optical connectivity, outside plant
hardware, fusion splicers and test equipment, training and
comprehensive system integration services
Key Products: Wireline and wireless broadband access
equipment, IP routing platforms, optical switching
and transport solutions, NGN and IMS solutions, IMS
applications, IPTV solutions, network management,
service integration capabilities, optical fiber, connecting
hardware and accessories, and right-of-way solutions
Summary: Founded in 1984 and headquartered in Spartanburg, South Carolina, AFL is a manufacturer and service provider enabling high-speed delivery of voice, video and data
communications to a variety of markets. AFL’s product line
includes fiber optic cable, connectivity, fiber management,
outside plant closures, demarcation devices, Fujikura fusion
splicers, Noyes test equipment and The Light Brigade training
and education. AFL plans, designs, implements and maintains
communications networks, offering solutions for private MDU
and master-planned community networks as well as telephone,
cable TV, utility, hospitality, enterprise and wireless companies. As a DIRECTV Master System Operator, AFL offers
end-to-end solutions including access to DIRECTV programming and services for MDUs, master-planned communities,
and hospitality and university applications. AFL’s bandwidth
management and conditional Internet access solutions enable
system operators to offer the best in video from DIRECTV and
innovative Internet packages. AFL also provides mesh wireless
solutions for MDU, master-planned community, municipality and enterprise applications, and recently provided an endto-end managed WiFi solution with BelAir Networks for the
newly renovated Hyatt Regency Newport. In May 2009 AFL
Network Services was selected for the wireless integration of
the Omni Hotels. AFL has more than 3,000 employees worldwide and is a division of Fujikura Ltd., with manufacturing,
sales and administrative offices located in the United States,
United Kingdom, Germany, Japan, Mexico and China.
Summary: Alcatel-Lucent, a telecommunications giant formed
in 2006 by a merger between Lucent and the French telecom
equipment vendor Alcatel, is a leader in fixed, mobile and converged broadband networking and IP technologies, applications and services. The company leverages the technical and
scientific expertise of Bell Labs, one of the largest innovation
powerhouses in the communications industry. Alcatel-Lucent
partners with service providers, enterprises and governments
worldwide to deliver voice, data and video communication services. One out of three fixed broadband subscribers around the
world are served through access networks provided by AlcatelLucent; these networks encompass a range of access technologies (xDSL, VDSL, GPON, P2P fiber) and deployment models
(FTTN, FTTB, FTTH). With operations in more than 130
countries, Alcatel-Lucent reported revenues of $12.6 billion in
2008. It is incorporated in France, with executive offices located in Paris and in Murray Hill, New Jersey.
Alliance Fiber Optic Products (AFOP)
www.afop.com
408-736-6900
Key Products: Fiber optic components and integrated modules
Summary: Alliance Fiber Optic Products (AFOP) designs,
manufactures and markets high-performance fiber optic components and integrated modules for the optical network equipment market. These include passive optical components such as
July/August 2009 | www.broadbandproper ties.com | BROADBAND PROPERTIES |
43
interconnect systems, couplers and splitters; thin-film CWDM
and DWDM components and modules; fixed and variable optical attenuators; and integrated subsystems. Based in Sunnyvale, California, the company serves communications equipment manufacturers that deliver optical networking systems
to all three segments of the communications network: longhaul, metropolitan and first-mile access. AFOP was founded
in 1995, has 800 employees, and maintains manufacturing and
product development facilities in the US, Taiwan, and China.
In 2008 AFOP generated revenues of $38.7 million, up from
$33.8 million in 2007.
Allied Telesis
www.alliedtelesis.com
408-519-8700
Key Products: Devices and solutions for running Ethernet/
IP networks over fiber and copper, including Layer 3
Ethernet switches, GePON customer premises equipment
amd multiservice access platforms, NICs, media
converters and wireless access points
Summary: Allied Telesis, headquartered in Tokyo with a
network management subsidiary in Bothell, Washington, is a
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manufacture
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of P2P and GePON network equipment and is the world’s
largest supplier of fiber network interface cards. Its GePON
ONU is available in form factors as small as 4x4 inches. Its ATiMG646PX-ON GePON intelligent Multiservice Gateway for
Outdoor Deployment offers up to 1 Gbps per customer. This
spring the company announced the world’s first Fast Ethernet
fiber Network Interface Card (NIC) in ExpressCard format
for consumer TV. The company has pioneered an “Eco” product line engineered to reduce power consumption. Products
in this line use centralized power management features that
automatically place idle circuitry into a lower power mode to
save energy (and battery life in laptops). The parent company
had 2008 revenue of almost $500 million (48 billion yen) and
ended the year with 2,300 employees. The company, which
was established in 1987, has been particularly prominent in
P2P Ethernet solutions in the United States.
Alloptic
www.alloptic.com
925-245-7600; 866-255-6784
Key Products: FTTH solutions including RF Over Glass
(RFOG) and Gigabit Ethernet Passive Optical Network
(GePON)
Summary: Alloptic develops and delivers optical access solutions that are used by CATV, telecom, and private network
operators to offer converged communications, entertainment,
security, and automation services for business and residential
customers. The company is the clear market leader in RFOG
(RF Over Glass) solutions and worldwide deployments and also
provides GePON solutions. Alloptic’s history of innovation,
dating to its founding in 1999, includes numerous patents that
have fundamentally advanced the capabilities and performance
of passive optical networks. With its 10GePON technology,
Alloptic is well prepared for the transition to next-generation
access networks. Headquartered in Livermore, California, Alloptic has customers in 20 countries worldwide.
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Alpha Technologies
www.alpha.com
360-647-2360
CMY
K
Key Products: Fiber-to-the-home powering options for
single-family, multiple-dwelling and small office home
office (SOHO) premises
WWW.GLDS.COM
44
800-882-7950
SALES@GLDS.COM
Summary: Founded in 1976, Alpha Technologies is a major
player in power systems to the broadband communications
industry worldwide. Alpha’s line of products provides critical
power conditioning and emergency backup to cable television,
data and voice networks. Rapid growth in global communica-
| BROADBAND PROPERTIES | www.broadbandproper ties.com | July/August 2009
tions as well as the connection between system power and overall network reliability have created a demand for Alpha’s products across an array of communications applications. Alpha’s
customer base is in 50 countries and includes major cable television system operators, telecommunications service providers
and full-service communications providers. Currently Alpha,
with more than 1,000 employees, has sales and service centers
in the US, Canada, Europe, the Middle East, China and Australia. Alpha Technologies is a member of The Alpha Group, a
global alliance of independent companies that share a common
philosophy: to create powering solutions for communications,
commercial, industrial and renewable energy markets.
“We believe the next “killer app”
of broadband usage may be
using [the] home connection
to make our electric energy
grid much more reliable and
efficient by interacting with smart
appliances. The world of ‘The
Jetsons’ is upon us.”
– James H. Salter, PE, Chairman,
Atlantic Engineering Group
Astec Underground
www.astecunderground.com
865-408-2100; 800-527-6020
Key Products: Trenchers, vibratory plows and directional
drilling equipment
Summary: Astec Underground, a subsidiary of Astec Industries, offers a complete line of underground construction equipment used to construct, maintain and repair telecommunications networks, including basic copper and fiber optic plant
and cable television systems. The company manufactures and
markets Astec utility trenchers and horizontal directional drills
as well as Trencor heavy-duty mechanical chain trenchers and
specialty rock excavation machines. In 2008 Astec introduced
its EarthPro Raptor Series, a new line of low-profile digging
chains highly resistant to wear and tear, as well as its Trencor T1760 mechanical drive chain trencher for rock trenching,
utility installation and pipeline work. Customers include small
contractors operating a single trencher; large utility providers
and contractors with fleets of underground construction equipment; horizontal directional drilling specialists; and contractors building giant cross-country pipelines. Headquartered
in Loudon, Tennessee, with 160 employees, Astec operates a
330,000-square-foot facility that includes corporate offices,
a new research and development center, training facilities, a
manufacturing plant and a custom paint facility. Astec Underground is one of 15 companies owned by Astec Industries,
which had revenues of $974 million in 2008.
AT&T, AT&T Connected Communities
www.att.com/communities
888-899-9048
Key Products: Voice, video, data and wireless services for
residential and business customers
Summary: AT&T is the largest communications holding
company in the world by revenue. Based in Dallas, Texas, it
employs 296,000 people worldwide and had more than $124
billion in revenues for 2008. AT&T serves 16.7 million highspeed Internet subscribers, including about 1 million on its new
fiber-enabled network, which also provides U-verse TV, an allIPTV television service. The AT&T Connected Communities
program is a strategic marketing initiative between AT&T and
regional or national single-family builders, developers, real estate investment trusts, apartment ownership and management
groups and homeowners’ associations to provide next-generation
communications and entertainment solutions to residents and
homebuyers and increase the value of their communities. The
initiative involves marketing and delivering AT&T voice, video
and broadband services – including fiber-based technology and
AT&T U-verse services, where available – to rental properties
and residential developments. AT&T Connected Communities has completed contracts with properties representing several million homes, condominiums and rental properties. AT&T
Connected Communities recently announced that it had built
a fiber-to-the-premises network to support U-verse services in
the Bluestone Apartments community, a master-planned rental
development in Greenfield, Indiana.
Atlantic Engineering Group
www.atlantic-engineering.com
706-654-2298
Key Products: Fiber optic design and engineering (central
office and outside plant), construction (headend, aerial
and underground), technical services (splicing, testing and
turn-up) and construction management
Summary: Atlantic Engineering Group (AEG), based in Braselton, Georgia, and founded in 1996, provides design, engineering,
construction, technical services and construction management
for telecommunications providers including municipalities,
utilities and independent telcos, and for governmental and
July/August 2009 | www.broadbandproper ties.com | BROADBAND PROPERTIES |
45
Smart Grid projects. Services include outside plant design and
construction. AEG has completed more than 65 fiber projects,
including 17 fiber-to-the-premises projects.
Aurora Networks
www.aurora.com
408-235-7000
Key Products: Optical transport products, including RFOG
solutions, to support cable providers’ migration from
hybrid fiber cable to advanced HFC, Fiber Deep and
DOCSIS-friendly fiber to the premises, including PON
Summary: Founded in 1999 and headquartered in Santa
Clara, California, Aurora Networks specializes in helping the
cable industry evolve with solutions for building future-proof
networks. Aurora Networks delivers technology optimized for
cable operators. Using its understanding of cable networks,
Aurora Networks delivers unique solutions – such as its Fiber
Deep architecture and digital return technology – and offers
a line of optical transport products designed to address specific issues of the cable broadband industry. Its node platform,
first introduced in 2002, is optimized for scaling bandwidth
to each subscriber through support for multiple segmentation
technologies (LcWDM, DWDM and CWDM). Aurora’s solutions include its Fiber Deep architecture, Fiber on Demand for
dedicated fiber-based Ethernet services, BitCoax tool to boost
coax capacity, end-to-end RFOG and RFPON (RFOG plus
PON) implementations, and Node PON for migration to the
all-IP world.
Blonder Tongue Laboratories
www.blondertongue.com
732-679-4000; 800-523-6049
Key Products: Analog products supporting CATV headend
and distribution applications; digital products supporting
8VSB/QAM applications; encoder products supporting
standard- and high-definition TV applications; systems
design and engineering, technical support and technical
training
Summary: Blonder Tongue, based in Old Bridge, New Jersey,
is a technology development and manufacturing company that
delivers encoding, digital transport and broadband product solutions to cable, including the multi-dwelling unit market, the
lodging/hospitality market and the institutional market (hospitals, prisons and schools).
For nearly 60 years Blonder Tongue has been providing
real-world solutions based on advanced technology designs
that have enabled the company to maintain its position as a
market leader in the private cable industry. Although the com-
46
Private Cable Operators and
Fiber Optic Amenity Providers
These companies specialize in working with property
owners and developers to provide tele-communications networks and/or services to multi-family housing, homeowner associations, resorts, hotels or student housing over fiber, copper or coax.
Company Name Web Address
Airwave Networks www.airwave-networks.com
American Cable Services www.americable.us
AT&T Connected
Communities
www.att.com/communities
BroadStar
Communications
www.broadstar.com
Connexion
Technologies www.cnxntech.com
Consolidated
Smart Systems
www.consolidatedsmart.com
Crystal Clear Technologies www.crystalclear
technologies.net
DirecPath
www.direcpath.com
Front Door Networks
www.frontdoornet.com
FTTH Communications www.ftthcom.com
MDU Communications
www.mduc.com
Multiband www.multibandusa.com
Pavlov Media www.pavlovmedia.com
Porchlight
www.porchlight
communications.com
Prime Time Communications www.primetime
communications.net
PrimeVision
Communications
www.myprimevision.net
Private Cable Systems
www.pvtcable.com
Road9
www.road9.net
Satellite Management
Services
www.smstv.com
Shenandoah
Telecommunications
www.shentel.com
TCI
www.tcintegration.com
TotalVision www.total-vision.net
Verizon Enhanced www.verizon.com/
Communities
communities
Westel Fiber
www.westelfiber.com
Ygnition Networks www.ygnition.com
Zial Networks
www.zial.com
Zoomy
Communications www.zoomyco.com
| BROADBAND PROPERTIES | www.broadbandproper ties.com | July/August 2009
pany’s core products are designed to primarily serve traditional
CATV markets, the recent release of several encoding products
has allowed the company to expand its position in the HDTV
and IPTV markets as well.
“The excitement and buzz created
by the broadband stimulus plan
has served well to prevent a
downward spiral congruent with
the overall economy. However, as
an industry, we cannot lose focus
on the fact that we create value
for America when we are out
building networks, and not sitting
around slicing up Stimulus pie.”
Bristol Virginia Utilities
www.bvu-optinet.com
276-669-4112
Key Products: Broadband services, consulting services
Summary: Bristol Virginia Utilities was the first municipal
utility in the United States to deploy an all-fiber network offering the triple play of video, voice and data services. BVU is a
municipally owned system providing electric, water, wastewater and fiber optic telecommunication and information services
to Abingdon, Washington County, and the city of Bristol, Virginia. These combined systems employ 158 people. BVU OptiNet, a nonprofit division of BVU, was launched in 2003 to
provide digital cable, telephone service and high-speed Internet
and now serves 9,500 customers in Southwest Virginia. BVU
FOCUS is a consulting, operations and management firm
operating under the umbrella of the City of Bristol, Virginia,
and BVU. With 63 employees, 40 of whom operate a remote
facility in Mooresville, North Carolina, it offers assistance to
– Minesh Patel, VP Outside Plant
Business Unit, Charles Industries
municipal entities in meeting their communities’ needs for
telecommunications and information services and traditional
utility operations. BVU provides 50 percent of the funding for
Bristol’s Economic Development Department and is heavily
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July/August 2009 | www.broadbandproper ties.com | BROADBAND PROPERTIES |
47
involved in promoting economic development to prospective
and existing industrial and commercial establishments. This
year the City of Bristol, Virginia, was named the only US finalist for the world’s Top Seven Intelligent Communities by the
Intelligent Community Forum, with BVU recognized for the
contributions of its broadband network to economic growth.
Calient Networks
www.calient.net
408-232-6400
“We expect a frenzy of FTTH
construction activity with the
stimulus program. We believe we
have weathered the worst of the
housing market and economic
crisis, and are now positioned
to help build better connected
communities.”
– Diane Kruse, CEO,
Zoomy Communications
Key Products: Automated fiber optic cross-connect systems
(AFOCS) providing fiber management solutions for
telecommunications providers and other markets
Summary: Calient Networks, which is headquartered in San
Jose, California, with additional engineering and manufacturing operations in Santa Barbara, California, manufactures the
DiamondWave family of automated fiber optic cross-connect
systems (AFOCS) for telecommunications service providers
worldwide. The DiamondWave family consists of FiberConnect (automated fiber optic cross-connect system), FiberMoni-
The Leading Conference on
Broadband Technologies and Services
April 26 – 28, 2010
InterContinental Hotel – Dallas
Addison, Texas
“The traffic in the exhibit hall was very good
with operators, integrators, telcos and CATV operators
asking lots of good questions, looking for the right
solutions for their buildings and properties. There
were also lots of networking opportunities and great
customer sit down meetings.”
– Sam Tagliavore, Sales Manager
Pacific Broadband Networks
To Exhibit or Sponsor, contact: Irene Prescott at
irene@broadbandproperties.com, or call 316-733-9122.
For other inquiries, call 877-588-1649,
or visit www.bbpmag.com.
48
tor (automated fiber management plus real-time dynamic
nonintrusive fiber monitoring) and PONConnect (automated
PON fiber management for FTTx deployments). These products are designed to allow network operators to intelligently
manage their fiber infrastructure in a fully automated, native “all optical” and bandwidth-agnostic manner. Calient’s
customers include AT&T, Verizon, Comcast, Terremark,
Deutsche Telekom, KDDI, NTT, Cisco, Alcatel-Lucent, Ericsson, Juniper, Fujitsu and national research and education
networks around the world. Calient sells worldwide through
a direct sales force as well as through partners including Tyco
Electronics, MRV, Cornet and Gale Technologies. The company recently secured $5 million in financing to continue its
expansion into the global Tier 1 service provider market.
Calix
www.calix.com
877-766-3500; 707-766-3000
Key Products: Software and equipment for deploying
FTTH and DSL networks, including multiservice access
platforms, OLTs and ONTs, outside plant and network
management software
Summary: Calix is the world’s largest equipment supplier focused solely on access, and is North America’s most widely deployed fiber-to-the-premises solutions provider. The Calix Unified Access Infrastructure allows providers to deploy any service
over any media type and protocol, via a form factor that fits
their deployment needs. The company has equipped many rural systems and pioneered long-range OLTs. The Calix C7 multiservice access platform enables the deployment of legacy and
advanced broadband services, including GPON. Its E-Series
includes Ethernet platforms for delivering copper- and fiber-
| BROADBAND PROPERTIES | www.broadbandproper ties.com | July/August 2009
based services, including a new residential active Ethernet platform, and its P-Series offers a broad portfolio of optical network
terminals for residential, business and MDU deployments. All
Calix products are managed by the Calix Management System,
which provides a single network view and advanced management capabilities across an entire unified access infrastructure.
Founded in 1999, Calix is headquartered in Petaluma, California, with offices in Boston and Minneapolis.
CANARIE
www.canarie.ca
613-943-5454
Key Products: Operation of an advanced research network;
research and development related to high-performance
networking
Summary: CANARIE is Canada’s advanced research and
innovation network. Established in 1993, the nonprofit corporation serves more than 50,000 researchers at almost 200
Canadian universities and colleges, government labs, research
institutes, hospitals and other private and public sector organizations, and connects them to innovators around the corner,
across the country and around the world. With major funding from the Government of Canada, CANARIE provides
advanced networking capability that enables scientists to manage, analyze and exchange very large volumes of data. It also
enables researchers and their partners to develop new tools that
harness the power of the network. Recent initiatives include
the Green IT program, which will develop advanced computing and networking technologies that reduce carbon and
greenhouse gas emissions from the world’s ICT infrastructure
and enable collaboration on promising green IT solutions; and
the promotion of a market-based demonstration project that
aims to provide residential users with the opportunity to own
or control their own fiber connections to the Internet.
Canobeam
Canon Broadcast and Communications
www.canobeam.com
201-807-3300; 800-321-4388
Key Products: Free space optics
Summary: Canon, a global $30 billion company operating
in many markets, pioneered the technology for the Free Space
Optics line of optical transceivers, which transmit data over
the air on beams of infrared light. The models in the Canobeam series deliver data speeds from 25 Mbps to 1.5 Gbps and
cover distances from 20 meters to 1,000 meters. Canobeam’s
Auto Tracking function constantly maintains beam alignment
and compensates for vibrations in the installation base caused
by weather and other factors. Like optical fiber, Canobeam systems are protocol-independent and require no radio-frequency
permits or licenses, and they are used in FTTH deployments
in situations where fiber optic cables are impractical. Canon
recently introduced the Canobeam DT-150 HD for wireless
uncompressed bidirectional high-definition and standard-definition SDI transmission. The 1.5 Gbps link transmits digital
HD/SD video, audio and control signals via Free Space Optics
at up to one kilometer for sports and other productions.
Canobeam is marketed by Canon USA’s Broadcast and
Communications Division, headquartered in Ridgefield Park,
New Jersey.
Charles Industries
www.charlesindustries.com
847-806-6300
Key Products: Outside plant fiber optic distribution pedestals
and enclosures, fiber terminals, extended-reach DSL
systems
Summary: Charles Industries designs and manufactures buried distribution pedestals for fiber optic applications, serving
telecommunications, municipality, utility, marine and industrial markets worldwide. The company introduced nonmetallic
“Due to economic conditions, the sales environment continues
to be challenging as cost savings and value have understandably become
our customers’ main priorities….Our strategy to transform into an
advanced broadband service provider has been a successful and critical
decision, because we are subject to the significant loss of telephone
access lines that is so common in the telecommunication industry
today due to wireless and new voice competition.”
– Steve Oldham, President and CEO, SureWest
July/August 2009 | www.broadbandproper ties.com | BROADBAND PROPERTIES |
49
fiber pedestals to the industry in 2001 and has continued to
provide new solutions for nearly all fiber deployment architectures. Charles Fiber Distribution Point (CFDP) pedestals offer GR-771-compliant closed architecture protection of both
ribbon fiber and loose buffer tube fiber. CFDP pedestals can
accommodate loop-through and stub-out distribution cable,
branch and drop splices, and fusion, mechanical or preconnectorized splicing. BDO open-architecture fiber pedestals offer
a lower-cost alternative for cost-conscious deployments. This
year the company introduced Charles Universal Broadband
Enclosures (CUBE), a line of compact metallic OSP Fiber Terminals designed for backhaul, automatic meter reading, remote
equipment deployment and equipment consolidation applications. Charles Industries, which is headquartered in Rolling
Meadows, Illinois, has about 350 employees and manufactures
all of its products in five US facilities.
Cisco Systems
www.cisco.com
770-236-5000
Key Products: Active Ethernet and DOCSIS-PON solutions
for fiber-to-the-home deployments; digital set-top boxes
and accessories, cable modems, headend equipment and
network management systems
Summary: Cisco Systems has long provided much of the
equipment that supports the Internet backbone, but recently
it has moved into the access network as well. Cisco’s E-FTTH
Network Testing, Monitoring
and Management Services
(Other than private cable operators)
Company Name Alcatel-Lucent
Aricent
Communication
Technology Services
Ericsson
www.aricent.com
www.cts1.com
www.ericsson.com
Source Technology
www.source-t.com
Steeplechase Networks
www.scnets.com
UTStarcom
50
(Ethernet fiber to the home) solution, which has been deployed
by several European providers, includes Ethernet access switches, aggregation routers and optical network terminals. Cisco
SPVTG (Service Provider Video Technology Group), formerly
Scientific Atlanta, supplies set-top boxes and cable modems,
transmission networks for home broadband access, and digital interactive subscriber systems for video, high-speed Internet
and VoIP networks. SPVTG is focused on the convergence of
the PC and TV and is extending multimedia broadband applications to new platforms. In April 2009, SPVTG introduced
tru2way hardware and software, including its Digital Network
Control System Release 4.0 series, Axiom middleware implementation and set-top boxes. Cisco also recently announced
new compact, high-density Prisma II optics products to improve the performance of existing fiber in cable networks, as
well as a DOCSIS Passive Optical Network (D-PON) architecture that is intended to help cable operators upgrade to FTTH
technology. Headquartered in San Jose, California, Cisco reported revenues of $39.5 billion in 2008, an increase of 13 percent over 2007. The company has about 66,000 employees.
www.alcatel-lucent.com
www.korcett.com
Tellabs
– John Hewitt, VP Cable and Headend Sales,
Alpha Technologies
Web Address
Korcett Holdings
TCI
“We believe that FTTx is still an
emerging market with significant
future growth and we are
committed to ongoing research
and development to deliver costeffective and highly efficient
powering solutions.”
www.tcintegration.com
www.tellabs.com
www.utstar.com
Clearfield
www.clearfieldconnection.com
763-476-6866
Key Products: Fiber distribution systems and associated
components
Summary: Clearfield, headquartered in Plymouth, Minnesota,
provides fiber management and connectivity systems for independent telephone, cable television and municipal networks.
Products include the WaveSmart platform of powered optical
signal products and the FieldSmart Fiber Management Platform,
which includes the Fiber Distribution System, Fiber Scalability
Center and Fiber Delivery Point series. The Field-Smart product
| BROADBAND PROPERTIES | www.broadbandproper ties.com | July/August 2009
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“TOWARD A FIBER CONNECTED WORLD”
“I found the (2009) conference to be the best yet. My time there
was very productive in making new contacts and seeing what’s
going on in the industry. Looking forward to next year.”
FEATURED SPONSORS & Exhibitors
Media Sponsor
SOLUTIONS. COMMUNICATIONS. TRANSFORMATION.
- Mike Powers, President & CEO
Greenfield Communications, Inc.
Get Connected at the Summit
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Expanded Multifamily Program Testimonials for Summit 09
Blockbuster Agenda of MDU Sessions
Look at what participants are saying about the 2009 event.
MDU co-Chairmen:
“The knowledge I have gained and the relationships formed
through participation in your annual Summit has been of
great assistance in getting Monticello to the point where we
can finally say that our (FTTH) system is under construction.”
– Jeff O’Neill, City Administrator
City of Monticello
Chris Acker
Director, Building Technology Services Group,
Forest City Enterprises, Inc.
Henry Pye
Vice President, Resident Technology Solutions,
RealPage, Inc.
Steve Sadler
Director Ancillary Services,
Post Apartment Homes, L.P.
The Summit is the leading event for
network builders and deployers.
The Broadband Properties Summit is the leading venue for information on digital and
broadband technologies for buildings and communities. With a focus on residential
properties, developments and municipalities, the Summit has become a must-attend
event for network builders and large-scale and wholesale buyers and users of broadband technologies, equipment, and services.
A Regular Venue for Industry Leaders
Developers and property owners are strongly represented, including recently from the
property field alone organizations such as:
• Essex Property Trust • Fairfield Residential • Holiday Retirement
• Choice Property Resources • American Campus Communities • Tonti Properties
• The Trump Organization • Inland American Communities
• Trimarchi Property Management • Archstone-Smith • Related Companies
• Forest City *Avalon Bay Communities • Equity Residential • Camden Property Trust
• Post Properties • United Dominion Realty Trust • AIMCO • AMLI Residential
• Capstone Real Estate Management • Colonial Properties Trust • Waterton Residential
• Michelson Realty • BRE Properties • Edward Rose Companies • Mastec, Inc.
• Riverstone Residential Group • Verde Apartment Communities
• Westdale Asset Management and many others.
The numerous providers included private cable operators and independent telcos plus
all the major incumbents. Municipal officials and economic development professionals
make up an important segment of participants that grows with each event.
Secure your seat today by calling 877-588-1649,
or visit our website at www.bbpmag.com
“…our experience at the show this year was tremendous! You
and your team did a great job recruiting top-notch attendees
during a tumultuous market. My sales team set meetings with
key retrofit targets and managed to engage potential future
developer partners of which we were previously unaware.”
– Carter Steg, Executive Vice President
Corporate Sales and Marketing, Connexion Technologies
“The traffic in the exhibit hall was very good with operators,
integrators, Telco’s and CATV operators asking lots of good
questions, looking for the right solutions for their buildings
and properties. There were also lots of networking opportunities and great customer sit down meetings.”
– Sam Tagliavore, Sales Manager
Pacific Broadband Networks
“This is the best show focused on MDU owners and property
developers – and a good source of leads.”
– Bhavani Rao, Senior Product
Marketing Manager, Alcatel – Lucent
“Business gets done here! From the moment I arrived, that’s
what it was all about.”
- Matt Springer, Executive Vice President of
Mergers and Acquisitions
Connexion Technologies
“There was some great hands on learning experiences and no
theoretical daydreaming. Great job.”
– Jay Schlum, Manager
Qwest Connected Communities
“This was the most informative conference I have attended as
a provider. The panels provided very valuable information and
from many different perspectives.”
– Tammy Gonzales, General Manager Commercial Markets
Bright House Networks
“The agenda is packed with things to do and people to listen
to. It was a great educational atmosphere.”
– John Pringle, President
E&S Ring Management Corporation
“The summit is a huge networking opportunity. From presenters to attendees, there was so much to learn.”
Ed Sokolowski, Dir Sys Design & Eng.
Alphion
“This was an excellent opportunity to catch up on what’s new
and successful in broadband.”
– John Huggins, Managing Partner
Technology Alliance LLC
“The keynote presenters gave great information to support
further infrastructure, and the open discussions throughout
the summit were extremely helpful.”
Rusty Stone, Telecom Project Manager
Camden Property Trust
“Excellent material was presented at this year’s summit. The
lineup was great and the whole thing was really well presented and organized.”
– John DeLoach, Senior Engineer
Fail Engineering
“It was great to know that my company is on track with all the
others. The panels worked well together in extending as much
information as they could.”
– Brian Heger, Communications Consultant
702 Communications
“I learned a lot about topics I was familiar with and also about
some topics I was unfamiliar with. Most of the information I
gained from the exhibits and from interaction with the other
attendees is invaluable.”
– Steve Belter, President
Wintek Corporation
“I loved being introduced to new vendor products. I also
thought that the keynote speakers had some great advice regarding funding.”
– Dale Hancock, Owner
Media Cast
“I was introduced to a unique view of broadband from a property/value add perspective.”
- Ken Gawelek, WWSP Business Development
Cisco
“This summit was a great way to network with other vendors
and clients and keep up with the broadband growth around
the world.”
– Teresa Whorton, Senior MDU Account Executive
Suddenlink Business
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lines, centered around the Clearview Cassette of integrated fiber
protection, support a wide range of panel configurations, densities, connectors and adapter options, and are offered alongside
an assortment of passive optical components. Clearfield provides
a complete line of fiber and copper assemblies for inside plant,
outside plant and access networks. Clearfield had revenues of
$23.5 million for the fiscal year ending September 2008.
CommScope
www.commscope.com
800-982-1708
Key Products: Cable and connectivity products including
fiber enclosures, hybrid fiber coaxial cable, fiber optic and
wireless integration products
Summary: Founded in Hickory, North Carolina, more than
30 years ago, CommScope had 2008 revenues of $4.01 billion
and is a leader in the design and manufacture of connectivity
solutions for communications networks. CommScope is the
world’s largest manufacturer of coaxial cable for hybrid fiber/
coax applications and a major supplier of coaxial, fiber optic
and twisted-pair cables, as well as rugged conduit products and
broadband equipment solutions for wireless plant, FTTH and
commercial services applications. CommScope has a global
manufacturing and distribution network supporting customers of its four major businesses. In December 2007, CommScope completed the acquisition of Andrew Corporation,
broadening the range of its infrastructure solutions for wireless, enterprise and broadband communications networks; in
2008 it announced a collaboration with Harmonic to provide
an integrated FTTH solution for cable operators. Recent product innovations include the 2008 launch of a new line of fiber
distribution hub cabinets as well as new customer-premises
equipment for its cable FTTH solution. The US Department
of Agriculture’s Rural Development Telecommunications Program accepted CommScope’s BrightPath fiber-to-the-home
solution in April 2009.
Connexion Technologies
www.connexiontechnologies.net
919-535-7329
Key Products: Design, customization and management of
telecommunications networks
Summary: Connexion Technologies customizes and manages
state-of-the-art communications networks in single-family,
multifamily, high-rise, resort and hospitality properties nationwide. Its award-winning networks are designed to optimize the
communications experience and value of properties for residents and property owners. Connexion Technologies is not a
service provider; rather, it manages a suite of providers that
offer entertainment and communications applications, including enhanced television, telephone, Internet and other services,
over Connexion’s carrier-neutral networks. The company is
based in Cary, North Carolina. It was established in 2002 to
target greenfield developments with fiber to the home but has
broadened its market to include existing properties as well. It
serves properties in 17 states.
Corning/Corning Cable Systems
www.corning.com;
www.corningcablesystems.com
828-901-5000
Key Products: Optical fiber, optical fiber cable, FTTH
cabinets, splitters, terminals, connectors, cable assemblies,
MDU products, other telecommunications hardware and
equipment, splice and test equipment, engineering services
and training
Summary: Corning developed the first fiber optic cable for
communications in 1970 and remains a world leader in special-
April 26 – 28, 2010
InterContinental Hotel – Dallas
Addison, Texas
The Leading Conference on Broadband Technologies and Services
s
e
t
a
l
u
t
a
Congr
Broadband
Properties
Magazine
these first sponsors and exhibitors who’ve joined the
2010 Broadband Properties Summit.
Advanced Media Technology
Alcatel-Lucent
Blonder Tongue
CommScope
Connexion Technologies
Design Nine
Display Systems International
Great Lakes Data
Hitachi
Motorola
Multicom, Inc.
North America Cable
Equipment
Pico Macom
Spot On Networks
Suttle
Toner Cable Equipment
Verizon Enhanced Communities
TAKE ACTION today and secure your participation!
To Exhibit or Sponsor, contact: Irene Prescott at
irene@broadbandproperties.com, or call 316-733-9122.
For other inquiries, call 877-588-1649,
or visit www.bbpmag.com.
July/August 2009 | www.broadbandproper ties.com | BROADBAND PROPERTIES |
51
“In contrast to the overall tenor of the times, we continue
to see customer demand for new network capabilities, as
telecommunications infrastructure improvements remain high
on priority lists worldwide, whether prompted by government
initiatives or fundamental customer needs and competition.”
– Steven Glapa, VP Product Management and Marketing, Zhone
ty glass and ceramics, creating and manufacturing components
that enable high-technology systems. The company, whose
2008 sales totaled nearly $5.9 billion, is distinguished by sustained investment in R&D, more than 150 years of materials
science and process engineering knowledge and a distinctive
collaborative culture. Corning Cable Systems develops and
manufactures optical cable, hardware and equipment designed
to make fiber-to-the-x deployments faster, easier, more reliable
and less costly. Its patented OptiTap Connector has become
the industry standard in preconnectorized, environmentally
hardened technology. The ClearCurve product suite, based on
ultrabendable optical fiber, opened the way for cost-effective
installation of fiber-to-the-home networks in multidwelling
units (MDUs) and other complicated deployments. Corning
Cable Systems Evolant Solutions for Carrier Networks delivers
tip-to-tip product and service offerings for FTTx, CATV and
wireless applications, and its preconnectorized solutions have
revolutionized the way FTTx networks are deployed. Consultants and network designers have access to a variety of design
tools and resources as part of Corning’s FTTxpert Program.
The Corning Total Access Program provides design, engineering, furnishing and installation companies with the tools necessary to ensure successful FTTH and wireless deployments,
while the Corning Connected Community Program helps
homebuilders and developers market FTTH to consumers.
Design Nine
www.designnine.com
540-951-4400
Key Products: Broadband planning, broadband project
management, broadband network design and
implementation
Summary: Design Nine offers broadband planning and engineering services such as fiber and wireless network design,
stimulus grant assistance, needs assessment and fiber/wireless
broadband build-out assistance to communities, developers
and local governments, including financial modeling, legal and
organizational design of community broadband systems and
52
project management. The firm’s network designs include open
access and open service broadband networks. Design Nine is
heavily involved in assisting clients with stimulus funding requests, and is working directly for the state government of New
Mexico, coordinating the development of all its broadband
stimulus funding. Headquartered in Blacksburg, Virginia, Design Nine has sales and project management offices in Raleigh,
North Carolina, and Santa Fe, New Mexico. The company’s
many public and private sector clients include the City of Danville, Virginia, where Design Nine has provided assistance with
network architecture, vendor selection, business and financial
planning, and service provider development to nDanville, the
first municipal open access, Layer 3 open services network in
the US. Another major Design Nine project, The Wired Road,
for the city of Galax, Virginia, is the first municipal integrated
fiber and wireless open access, open services network in the
United States.
DIRECTV
www.directv.com
888-777-2454
Key Products: Satellite TV services to residential and
business customers; network installation and integration
Summary: Headquartered in El Segundo, California, DIRECTV delivers satellite TV service to US residential and
business customers with a strong emphasis on multifamily solutions. DIRECTV offers two multifamily solutions, MFH2
and MFH3. MFH2, which is appropriate for properties of all
sizes, and for existing as well as new construction, uses single-wire multiswitch technology. MFH3, designed for properties with 150 or more units and including remote network
monitoring, uses IP-based technology and requires the new “I”
series DIRECTV receivers. MFH2 and MFH3 can be implemented as a single property headend, providing a one-dishper-building solution. Both solutions provide access to all of
DIRECTV’s programming and services, including DVR, all
of DIRECTV’s current and planned HD channels, interactive
services and more. DIRECTV offers more than 130 HD channels and has enriched its content experience with the launch
of DIRECTV on DEMAND, a new service that offers both
instant access to movies and TV shows pushed to the cus-
| BROADBAND PROPERTIES | www.broadbandproper ties.com | July/August 2009
tomer’s DVR, as well as broadband access to more than 7,000
titles that can be downloaded to customers’ set-top boxes. DIRECTV also recently extended its exclusive agreement to offer
the NFL Sunday Ticket to DIRECTV customers through the
2014 season. DIRECTV has 16,000 employees in the US and
revenues were $17.3 billion in 2008.
Dish Network
commercial.dishnetwork.com
800-454-0843
Key products: Video programming packages for business,
hospitality and multifamily housing delivered via satellite
Summary: EchoStar Commercial Services, the division that
offers Dish Network for business, hospitality and multifamily
housing, provides satellite solutions for apartments and condos,
office and retail locations, bars and restaurants, hotels, hospitals
and assisted living facilities, universities, government and military facilities as well as creating custom solutions. Dish offers
two bulk programming options for MDUs: The Digital Home
Plan is a shared-dish system that allows residents to create their
own accounts and select preapproved programming packages
and equipment of their choice. The residents are billed directly
from DISH Network at standard residential rates. Bulk Programming with Digital Upgrades/Neighborhood Value Plan
delivers a low-cost bulk package to the entire complex with
individual upgrade options. In 2007 EchoStar launched ViPTV, a wholesale video IP transport and distribution platform
that can transport more than 300 channels of programming to
providers. Headquartered in Englewood, Colorado, Dish Network had 13.7 million subscribers in 2008, a loss of 102,000
subscribers from 2007, the first loss of customers in the company’s history. Revenues, however, were $11.6 billion in 2008,
up from $11.1 billion in 2007.
Ditch Witch
www.ditchwitch.com
800-654-6481
Key Products: Construction equipment for laying fiber
Summary: Ditch Witch dates from 1949, when the founder
invented a workable compact trencher. The Ditch Witch or-
ganization specializes in the design and manufacture of highquality underground construction equipment. It sells trenchers,
vibratory plows, pneumatic piercing tools, backhoes, electronic
tracking and locating tools, horizontal directional drilling systems, drill pipe, downhole tools, vacuum excavation systems,
excavator-tool carriers, mini skid steers pipebursting systems,
and the Zahn family of power utility equipment. In April 2009,
the organization released two new low-cost trenchers: the RT10
and the RT12. In May 2009, the company announced the release of the Ditch Witch 980 fault system, a new and improved
system for locating faults in direct-buried, unshielded power and
communications cables typically found at streetlight circuits and
meter risers, and across driveways, sidewalks, and streets. Ditch
Witch Financial Services (DWFS) offers a variety of financing
and lease options. The Ditch Witch organization’s manufacturing headquarters is located in Perry, Oklahoma, and has more
than 1,000 employees, with a dealer organization worldwide.
Draka Communications – Americas
www.drakaamericas.com
800-879-9862
Key Products: Optical fiber cable solutions for network
operators, telecommunications carriers, utilities, installers
and enterprises
Summary: Draka Communications – Americas, founded in
1910 and based in Claremont, North Carolina, provides cabling solutions for a wide range of applications. It is a division
of the multinational firm Draka, one of the world’s largest optical fiber producers with more than 25 million miles of fiber deployed in North America alone. Draka, headquartered in Amsterdam, had net sales of $4.15 billion and 10,005 employees in
2008. In December 2007, Draka purchased the minority share
of its subsidiary Draka Comteq from Alcatel-Lucent, merged
the two head offices and is now using the name Draka Communications for this part of the business. Draka Communications’ single-mode fiber, BendBright, is a bend-insensitive fiber
that combines the unlimited transmission capacity of optical
fiber with copper-like flexibility and handling. Because it can
“Applications such as HDTV are moving beyond 1080p to higher
2D resolutions, and even 3D imaging in the home is becoming a reality,
creating exponential bandwidth growth…We also anticipate growth
in applications areas such as cellular backhaul and commercial
services where copper cabling is increasingly limited.”
– Dr. Bernhard Deutsch, Director of Marketing and Market Development, Corning Cable Systems
July/August 2009 | www.broadbandproper ties.com | BROADBAND PROPERTIES |
53
withstand repeated bending to very small radii and is backward compatible with older fiber, BendBright facilitates bending, connecting and storing fibers in real-world FTTH and
business situations. In September 2008 Draka surpassed the
150,000-mile mark for sales of BendBright-XS. Its groundwire
fiber business was recently sold to AFL Telecommunications.
Emerson Network Power
www.emersonnetworkpower.com
440-246-6999; 800-800-1280
Key Products: AC and DC power, outside plant enclosures,
precision cooling systems, embedded computing and
power, integrated racks and enclosures, power switching
and controls, monitoring and connectivity
Summary: Emerson Network Power, a business of Emerson, is a
global leader in enabling Business-Critical Continuity from grid
to chip for telecommunication networks, data centers, health
care and industrial facilities. Business-Critical Continuity is the
assurance that critical technology investments will not fail due
Video Programming Aggregators
(Linear, VoD and interactive)
Company Name 4Com
Web Address
www.4com.com
Accedo Broadband www.accedobroadband.com
Avail Media/TVN
www.availmedia.com
Cloverleaf Digital
www.cloverleafdigital.com
Comcast Media
Center (HITS)
www.comcastmediacenter.com
CSI Digital
www.csidigital.net
DIRECTV
www.directv.com
Dish Network
commercial.dishnetwork.com
Eagle Broadband KT Communications www.eaglebroadband.com
National Rural Telecommunications
Cooperative
www.nrtc.coop
Skyway Connect
Telechannel
54
Enablence Technologies
www.enablence.com
613-270-7860
Key Products: PLC-based FTTH triplexers and diplexers,
FTTH central office and customer-premises equipment
Summary: Founded in 2004 and with corporate headquarters
in Ottawa, Ontario, Enablence Technologies is a publicly traded
company that designs, manufactures and sells optical components, subsystems and systems. Enablence’s Network Division
provides the TRIDENT 7 Universal Optical Line Terminals
(OLTs), Optical Network Terminals (ONTs) and Element
Management System. Its Optical Components & Subsystems
Division provides FTTx access products such as integrated triplexers and diplexers for BPON, GPON and GePON splitters.
It also offers solutions for the metro and long-haul markets.
Many of the company’s component products apply planar
lightwave circuit (PLC) technology that integrates 45+ components into a single optical chip to support the global rollout
of fiber to the home. New products and technologies include
a 40 Gbps tunable optical dispersion compensator; a multicast
switch; a high-speed DWDM for transmitter/receiver optical
subassembly and a photodiode chip with integrated bandpass
filter. Last year, Enablence’s FTTx Networks Division merged
with Pannaway, a broadband access and transport solutions
provider with nearly 300 rural telco customers. In May 2009
the Delhi Telephone Company in Delhi, New York, selected
Enablence as its exclusive supplier for FTTH deployments. The
company’s revenue for fiscal 2008 was $2.6 million.
www.ktcom.tv
National Cable Television
Cooperative
www.cabletvcoop.org
Satellite Management
Services
to power loss and disrupt a company’s business. Based in Columbus, Ohio, Emerson Network Power provides solutions and
expertise in areas including AC and DC power and precision
cooling systems, embedded computing and power, integrated
racks and enclosures, power switching and controls, monitoring
and connectivity. All solutions are supported globally by local
Emerson Network Power service technicians. The company has
an estimated 48,000 employees and fiscal 2008 revenue of $5.8
billion. It is a member of Green Grid.
www.smstv.com
www.skywayconnect.com
www.telechannel.tv
Ericsson
www.ericsson.com/us
972-583-0000
Key Products: VDSL2 and FTTH electronics, Ribbonet
air-blown fiber solution for FTTx applications, cables and
interconnect products, microwave networks, network
management tools, stations and broadband switches,
IPTV middleware
| BROADBAND PROPERTIES | www.broadbandproper ties.com | July/August 2009
“FTTP maturation, the overall
economic market freefall earlier
this year and the government’s
stimulus package have created a
perfect storm for FTTP network
deployers who are looking for the
best price for their networks.”
– Cheri Beranek Podzimek,
President and CEO, Clearfield
Summary: Ericsson is one of the largest providers of telecommunications equipment and related services to mobile and fixed
network operators globally. Over 1,000 networks in more than
175 countries use its network equipment and 40 percent of all
mobile calls are made through Ericsson systems. Ericsson is
one of the few companies worldwide that can offer end-to-end
solutions for all major mobile communications standards. A
worldwide leader in GPON, the company recently announced
contracts with the three major Chinese telecom providers to
roll out GPON networks in nine Chinese provinces. Ericsson
invests heavily in R&D and actively promotes open standards
and systems; with more than 23,000 patents, it has one of the
industry’s most comprehensive intellectual property portfolios. Ericsson was founded in 1876. Global headquarters are
in Stockholm, Sweden, with North American headquarters in
Plano, Texas. More than 78,000 employees generated revenue
of $26.7 billion in 2008.
ETI Software Solutions
www.etisoftware.com
770-242-3620
Key Products: Back-office software for service providers
including service delivery platform, billing solution, field
technician application, ad insertion software and prepaid
services platform
Summary: Founded in 1992 and headquartered in Atlanta,
Georgia, ETI Software Solutions is a developer of software
products deployed by more than 120 utility systems, telecom-
July/August 2009 | www.broadbandproper ties.com | BROADBAND PROPERTIES |
55
munications and private FTTH service providers serving millions of subscribers worldwide. Triad SDP systems offer the
ability to fully automate provisioning of FTTH, DSL, IPTV,
RF video, and softswitches. Triad’s modules include order entry/rating, work order management/scheduling, and reporting and billing functionality (énconcert) to support advanced
telecommunications services. Since Triad’s debut in 2004, ETI
has been deployed in 40 systems, including many of North
America’s largest FTTH services providers.
of a manual patch panel. According to the company, FiberZone’s platforms enable improved levels of service and fewer
network faults, lowering total cost of ownership of the fiber infrastructure. FiberZone AFM technology also enables carriers
to generate new revenue streams through on-demand service
provisioning. In September 2008, the company announced the
Network Planning, Design,
Engineering, Construction
(Excludes companies that only build
networks they will own and manage)
EXFO Electrical Optical Engineering
www.exfo.com
418-683-0211; 800-663-3936
Company Name Adesta
Key Products: Test and service assurance solutions for the
global telecommunications industry
Atlantic Engineering Group www.atlantic
engineering.com
Summary: EXFO, based in Quebec City, Canada, provides
test and service assurance solutions for the global telecommunications industry. The Telecom Division, representing close
to 90 percent of the company’s business, offers test solutions
and monitoring systems to network service providers, cable TV
operators, network equipment manufacturers and component
manufacturers in about 70 countries. EXFO’s modular FTB500, FTB-200, AXS-200, IQS-600 (Windows/ PC-based)
and InterWatch platforms host test solutions covering all layers
of network infrastructure and extending across the full technology lifecycle. In February 2009, EXFO acquired PicoSolve,
a privately held Swedish company that produces oscilloscopes
used in the design and production of next-generation optical
networks. In fiscal 2008 the company reported revenues of
$184 million, a 20 percent increase over 2007.
Web Address
www.adestagroup.com
AFL Telecommunications
Corning Cable Systems
www.afltele.com
www.corningcable
systems.com
Design Nine
www.designnine.com
DSI Technologies
www.dsifiber.com
Emerson Network Power
www.emersonnetwork
power.com
Fiber-Tel Contractors
www.fibertel
contractors.com
Finley Engineering
www.fecinc.com
InfiniSys Electronic Architects
www.electronic
architect.com
Inteleconnect
www.inteleconnect.com
KGP Logistics
www.kgplogistics.com
KiS Communications
www.kis-comm.com
LTS Group
www.ltscompany.com
Michels Communications
FiberZone Networks
www.fiberzone-networks.com
301-941-1928
Key Products: Automated fiber management systems
Summary: FiberZone Networks provides Automated Fiber
Management (AFM) solutions that allow facility operators to
deliver new fiber-based services, design and operate networks
efficiently and flexibly, and improve customer service and
network uptime. FiberZone AFM enables network operators
to provision, manage and troubleshoot networks end-to-end
without having to perform on-site servicing. The foundation
of AFM is FiberZone’s patented Latched Optical Coupling,
which delivers remote control and automation to the fiber infrastructure while maintaining the attributes and reliability
56
MPNexlevel.com
Multicom
www.michels.us
www.mpnexlevel.com
www.multicominc.com
OFS
www.ofsoptics.com
On Trac
www.ontracinc.net
Source Technology
www.source-t.com
Steeplechase Networks
www.scnets.com
TCS Communications
Team Fishel
Tellabs
Tetra Tech
US Metronets
Zoomy Communications
| BROADBAND PROPERTIES | www.broadbandproper ties.com | July/August 2009
www.tcscomm.com
www.teamfishel.com
www.tellabs.com
www.tetratech.com
www.usmetronets.com
www.zoomyco.com
general availability of its flagship product, the AFM-360, and
also announced sales of the AFM-360 to large carriers in Asia
and the US. FiberZone Networks is one of the charter members of the Advanced Fiber Connectivity and Switching Forum
(AFCS), formed in June 2008. The company is privately held
with offices in the United States and Israel.
Finley Engineering
www.fecinc.com
417-682-5531
Key Products: Network design and engineering services
Summary: Founded in 1953, Finley Engineering Company
(FEC) has more than 200 employees in nine offices nationwide
and is one of the largest telecom network design companies
in the US. The company specializes in end-to-end engineering
consulting in the fields of telecommunications, cable television,
electric power transmission and distribution, project management and right-of-way services. FEC develops standard design
criteria for telecom network projects and follows through with
detailed designs, construction documents, contracts, contract
administration and material lists. Once a project is under way,
the company can provide construction observation and project
management. Finley provided the first full FTTH installation
in Missouri for Alma Communications, an independent telephone company providing services in rural Missouri.
With the explosion of HD
channels, IPTV programming
and high-speed Internet access
demanding higher bandwidth
capacity, fiber-based triple-play
distribution systems in MDUs
are becoming the infrastructure
of choice. Since fiber optic
infrastructure costs have come
down, this investment is now
cost-effective for both the
greenfield and retrofit markets.”
– Jack Hotz, CEO, Foxcom
ment are based in Israel, and it also has offices in the US, UK,
and South Africa. Foxcom currently employs more than 40
people, with the majority in research and development.
Graybar
www.graybar.com
800-GRAYBAR (472-9227)
Foxcom
www.foxcom.com
609-514-1800
Key Products: Broadband fiber optic MDU distribution
systems for video, voice and data; satellite downlink signal
transport over fiber
Summary: Foxcom, a division of OnePath Networks, provides
fiber optic solutions to the MDU market and the professional
satellite earth station and video distribution markets. Founded
in 1993, Foxcom has two product lines: point-to-multipoint
distribution platforms for the MDU triple play market, and
point-to-point transport of satellite signals in earth stations,
broadcast facilities, cable TV headends and other satellite
gateway applications. In 2008 Foxcom launched products for
both the PCO and the satellite communications markets: the
BsmarTV suite, an MFH-2-ready, triple play deployment platform for the MDU market, and SatLight/Platinum, enabling
advanced RF and fiber optic link control and monitoring, for
the earth station market. The addition of active Ethernet products to the BsmarTV platform create a full triple-play fiber
optic distribution system with the broadest pipe to the home.
Foxcom’s corporate headquarters and its research and develop-
Key Products: Fiber connectors, couplers, housings, panels,
splice trays, fusion splicers, cleaners, test equipment, VAR
services
Summary: Graybar, a Fortune 500 company, specializes in supply chain management services and is a leading North American
distributor of components, equipment and materials for several
industries. With net sales of $5.4 billion in 2008, Graybar employs approximately 8,000 people at more than 240 distribution
centers throughout the US, Canada and Puerto Rico. It is one
of North America’s largest and oldest employee-owned companies. Established in 1869, Graybar stocks and sells hundreds of
thousands of items from thousands of manufacturers and can
procure, warehouse and deliver almost any kind of electrical,
communications or data product, component or service. Fiber
connectivity solutions represent a fast-growing area in its catalog. Through its distribution network and value-added services,
including kitting and integrated solutions, Graybar is helping its
customers power and network their facilities.
July/August 2009 | www.broadbandproper ties.com | BROADBAND PROPERTIES |
57
Great Lakes Data Systems
www.glds.com
800-882-7950
Key Products: Billing and provisioning software for cable
TV, Internet, VoIP, pay-per-view, video on demand and
other broadband services
Summary: Great Lakes Data Systems was founded in 1980 by
cable professionals to meet the industry’s need for reliable, intelligently designed billing software. Customers are primarily
small to midsized cable companies, ranging from startup operations to systems with more than 250,000 subscribers. GLDS
serves more than 300 operators including both private cable
Fiber-to-the-Home Electronics
(Central-office and/or
customer-premises equipment)
Company Name ADTRAN
Web Address
www.adtran.com
AFL Telecommunications www.afltele.com
Alcatel-Lucent
www.alcatel-lucent.com
Allied Telesis
www.alliedtelesis.com
Alloptic
www.alloptic.com
Aurora Networks
www.aurora.com
Calix
www.calix.com
Cisco Systems
www.cisco.com
Commscope
www.commscope.com
ECI Telecom
www.ecitele.com
Enablence
www.enablence.com
Ericsson
www.ericsson.com
Hitachi Communication
Technologies America
Motorola
Occam Networks
www.occamnetworks.com
Pacific Broadband
Networks
Telco Systems
www.packetfront.com
www.pbnamericas.com
www.telco.com
Tellabs
www.tellabs.com
TXP Corporation
www.txpcorp.com
UTStarcom
Zhone Technologies
ZyXEL Communications
58
Greenfield Communications
www.egreenfield.com
949-248-8898
Key Products: Fiber optic design, construction and
operations; service provider for voice, video, high-speed
data and community Intranet services
Summary: Based in Southern California, Greenfield Communications Inc. was formed in 2001 to provide turnkey fiber-to-thehome solutions for developers of new master-planned residential
communities. The company has 11 active FTTH projects and
more than 7,000 customers throughout California and Arizona.
Greenfield Connect, a division of Greenfield Communications,
provides low-voltage structured wiring, home entertainment and
automation packages and security monitoring. Greenfield also
has contracts with UCLA, the City of Pasadena and the City of
Dana Point to provide fiber optic design, cabling and communication services. The company was recently approved as a dealer
for DIRECTV and plans to deploy its MFH3 system in new and
existing multiple-dwelling-unit projects.
www.hitachicta.com
www.motorola.com
PacketFront
operators and fiber-to-the-home providers such as the municipal FTTH system in Tullahoma, Tennessee, and several others. Voice, video and data can be provisioned directly from the
billing system and itemized on a single monthly subscriber bill.
The company’s two largest offices are in Carlsbad, California,
and Beaver Dam, Wisconsin, but it operates in 49 states and
40 countries worldwide. Key products include WinCable, for
cable billing and subscriber management, and WinVoIP, which
can provision, import, consolidate, manage, report and bill call
detail records from most integrated VoIP vendors’ packages.
The GLDS SuperController II add-on for pay-per-view can
be used along with other billing software, and interfaces with
most headend equipment and set-top boxes. GLDS also sells
hosted solutions for providers that choose not to run billing
and provisioning systems in house.
www.utstar.com
www.zhone.com
www.us.zyxel.com
GVTC
www.gvtc.com
800-367-4882
Key Products: Video, high-speed Internet, security
monitoring, local and long-distance telephone and
advanced data services
Summary: GVTC was formed as a telephone cooperative in
1951 to provide phone service to rural residents of Central and
South Texas. Today it is the largest telephone cooperative in
Texas, with more than 41,000 customers in 11 counties across
an area that covers approximately 2,000 square miles. In addition to phone service, GVTC provides high-speed Internet,
digital TV and home security monitoring. GVTC was the first
telecommunications entity to provide fiber-to-the-home tech-
| BROADBAND PROPERTIES | www.broadbandproper ties.com | July/August 2009
nology in South Texas, and its 20 Mbps residential broadband
speeds and 25 Mbps business broadband speeds are among the
fastest in the San Antonio area. GVTC is in the midst of a fiveyear, $35 million FTTH expansion project, replacing copper
lines with fiber connections in most of its established communities. The project is projected to add FTTH to 20,000 additional
premises by year-end 2012. The company was recently awarded
the FTTH Council Chairman’s Award for expansion of FTTH
connections. GVTC has 225 employees and revenues for 2008
were $75 million. Because it is a nonprofit, any telephone-related revenues over and above operating expenses are allocated to
member-owners in the form of capital credits; GVTC is issuing
$4.1 million in capital credit payouts to its members for 2008.
video delivery to TV, PC and mobile devices, and the Divicom Electra 8000 universal SD/HD MPEG-2 AVC encoder, a
1-RU encoder with multiresolution, multistandard, multiservice and multichannel capabilities. Harmonic has partnered
with Microsoft and YouTube on digital content management
and with CommScope on an FTTH solution for cable operators. In March 2009, Harmonic acquired Scopus Video Networks, increasing its presence in the contribution/distribution
market. Harmonic reported revenues of $365 million in 2008,
up 17.3 percent over 2007.
Hiawatha Broadband Communications
www.hbci.com
888-474-9995
Key Products: Internet access, cable television, telephone and
wireless services
Harmonic
www.harmonicinc.com
408-542-2500; 800-788-1330
Key Products: Digital video and fiber optic solutions for
networks
Summary: Harmonic provides digital video, HFC access and
software solutions for the world’s leading broadcast, cable,
satellite, Internet, mobile and telco providers. Headquartered
in Sunnyvale, California, Harmonic operates R&D, sales
and systems integration centers worldwide. US customers include AT&T CruiseCast, Cablevision Systems, Charter Communications, Comcast, Cox Communications, DIRECTV,
EchoStar, Hearst-Argyle, Insight Communications, Sinclair
Broadcasting, Time Warner Cable and Yahoo. International
customers include many Tier 1 providers in Europe and Asia.
Recent product introductions include the ProStream 4000
multiscreen encoder, part of Harmonic’s solution for converged
Summary: Founded in 1997, Hiawatha Broadband Communications (HBC) offers residential, business and wholesale television; Internet access; telephone; and media production services in southeast Minnesota. Wireless services will be added
soon. HBC operates both hybrid fiber/coax and fiber-to-thehome networks and has completed the activation of three new
fiber-to-the-home communities in the towns of Rollingstone,
Stockton and Lewiston. HBC provides a complete video service selection of more than 100 TV channels (including highdefinition programming), digital music, pay-per-view where
available, and extensive local programming produced by HBC
Productions. Digital video service is available in nine service areas. The company has 68 employees, seven retail communities
and a wholesale division. Annual revenues are $12 million.
“Consumer trends – led by the explosions in online video and
content sharing – are certainly the easiest factors to identify. However,
other building systems such as energy management and digital
messaging are making broadband infrastructure integral to efficient
building operations. Additionally, the always-on, always-connected
lifestyle residents now enjoy will only become even more commonplace
and more complex….Communities with the capacity to leverage new
technologies will be able to deliver incredibly rich experiences that are
personalized to each resident’s tastes, and opportunities in multifamily
go far beyond the capabilities of the typical single-family home.”
– Mike Whaling, VP Business Development, InfiniSys
July/August 2009 | www.broadbandproper ties.com | BROADBAND PROPERTIES |
59
Hitachi Communication Technologies America
www.hitachi-cta.com
770-446-8820
Key Products: Optical access solutions, optical transport
equipment, electronic and optical components, wireless
infrastructure products
Summary: Hitachi develops and manufactures optical access
equipment, including EPON, GPON and RFOG fiber-to-thepremises solutions, for telecommunications service providers,
cable television network operators, utilities, municipalities and
real estate developers. In April, 2009, Hitachi merged Salira
Systems Inc., a Hitachi-owned provider of EPON technology,
into Hitachi Telecom (USA) Inc. to form Hitachi Communication Technologies America Inc. (HCTA). The company also
offers ultra-high-speed optical transport systems and multicarrier power amplifiers for wireless infrastructure applications.
Hitachi Communication Technologies America is headquartered in Norcross, Georgia, with offices in Santa Clara, California. The company is a subsidiary of Hitachi Ltd. of Japan.
Hitachi Ltd. has approximately 400,000 employees worldwide
and in fiscal 2008 (ended March 2009) generated sales of $102
billion (10,000 billion yen). Hitachi Ltd. is ranked No. 3 in
the electronics, electrical equipment category of the Fortune
Global 500 for 2007, and 48th overall.
IneoQuest
www.ineoquest.com
508-339-2497
Key Products: Digital video quality assurance technology
Summary: Established in 2001, IneoQuest is a privately held
company based in Mansfield, Massachusetts, with 168 employees. Its digital video quality assurance technology includes
solutions that audit, monitor, analyze and troubleshoot digital
video from the set-top box to the headend, enabling customers
in the telephony, cable, satellite, broadcast and network equipment industries to improve digital video quality and reduce
operating expenses. IneoQuest’s IQPinPoint platform encompasses video test and analysis solutions including the Cricket,
a family of intelligent video network probes that enable video
network operators to analyze, debug and resolve video quality
and MPEG errors. IneoQuest’s iVMS, the software management component of IQPinPoint, delivers a delivers a complete
view of the health of the digital video network along with
rapid, practical isolation and remote troubleshooting. The
company also launched VeriFrame, a programming verification solution that enables video providers, manufacturers and
broadcasters to automatically verify video and audio content
frame by frame, detecting black screen, luminance levels and
freeze frame, and audio levels. In February 2009, IneoQuest
60
partnered with network-quality tester Spirent Communications to provide an end-to-end global video quality-testing
suite for network equipment manufacturers. Also new this year
is Cricket QAM Plus, an affordable, dual QAM and MPEG
monitoring and analysis tool that enables cable network operators to monitor, analyze, debug and resolve video quality issues
at hub sites or subscriber premises.
InfiniSys Electronic Architects
www.electronicarchitect.com
386-236-1500
Key Products: Multifamily technology consulting,
telecommunications network design, technology amenity
engineering, FTTA Fiber-to-the-Apartment system,
acquisition due diligence (technology assessments),
strategic technology planning, low-voltage system
integration, in-building wireless/cellular networks, resident
technical support services, product design services, service
provider contract negotiations, project management
Summary: InfiniSys helps multifamily developers and property owners leverage technology to improve operations and
differentiate their communities. As independent technology
advisors, the company creates comprehensive, standards-based
amenity solutions for new and existing apartments, condominiums, student housing, mixed-use developments and masterplanned communities. InfiniSys also represents developers and
property owners in negotiations with service providers and
contractors. Most recently, it has been creating online marketing campaigns that enable property owners to connect communities and create new revenue streams. InfiniSys also works
with electronics manufacturers and service providers to create
new product and service offerings. Offering services nationwide, InfiniSys is headquartered in Daytona Beach, Florida.
Internet2
www.internet2.edu
734-913-4250
Key Products: Research and development of new network
applications and technologies that will form the basis of
the next-generation Internet
Summary: Internet2 is a research and development consortium led by more than 200 US universities working in partnership with industry and government to develop and deploy
advanced network applications and technologies, accelerating
the creation of tomorrow’s Internet. Supported by a core central staff, Internet2 activities are member focused and led. Internet2 efforts are focused on advanced network applications including interactive distance learning, remote access to unique
scientific instruments, real-time access to large databases and
streaming high-definition video; new network capabilities such
as quality of service, multicasting and IPv6 that will enable
tomorrow’s commercial Internet to provide the reliable perfor-
| BROADBAND PROPERTIES | www.broadbandproper ties.com | July/August 2009
“Even in a tough economic
climate, consumer demand for
broadband and higher speed
continues strong.
– Steve Klein, Director Marketing &
Business Development, Allied Telesis
mance advanced applications require; middleware including
standardized security, directories and other services required
by advanced network applications; and high-performance networks linking the campuses and laboratories of more than 200
Internet member institutions. The high-performance networks
participating in the Internet2 project provide the environment
in which new network applications and capabilities can be
deployed and tested. Thousands of K-12 schools are now also
connected to Internet2, providing schoolchildren with unprecedented educational opportunities and teachers with new opportunities for professional development.
JDSU
www.jdsu.com
408-546-5000
Key Products: Fiber optic communications components
and testing equipment including attenuators, circulators,
couplers/splitters/WDMs, detectors/receivers,
transmission, amplification, wavelength management
modules, circuit packs, optical test platform
Summary: JDSU is a provider of optical products and test and
measurement solutions for telecommunications service providers, cable operators and network equipment manufacturers. It
provides the building blocks required for Agile Optical Networks (AONs) – enabling systems that can be managed remotely and respond dynamically to changes in network traffic
patterns. JDSU was formed in 1999 with the merger of JDS
Fitel, known for its passive optical components, and Uniphase
Corporation, known for its active components and lasers, and
it has acquired 26 companies since then. JDSU is now one of
the largest providers of fiber optic test solutions in the world,
thanks to its acquisitions of Westover Scientific, Innocor, Casabyte, Test-Um and Acterna. With sales and distribution in more
than 160 countries, JDSU serves an expanded customer base
that includes the largest 100 telecommunications and cable services providers and system manufacturers worldwide. Based in
Milpitas, California, JDSU has 4,244 employees. Revenue was
more than $1.5 billion for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2008.
KGP Logistics
www.kgplogistics.com
800-755-3004
Key Products: Outside plant, central office, datacomm,
transmission, customer premises and broadband products
Summary: KGP Logistics, formerly EMBARQ Logistics until
it was acquired by KGP Telecommunications in March 2009,
has been providing the telecommunications industry with supply chain and distribution services for more than 30 years. The
company’s national distribution network comprises 10 regional
distribution centers located strategically across the United States
and 10 product manufacturing facilities that provide fiber and
copper factory-terminated cable, custom assemblies, and assemble, wire and test (AWT) services along with complete engineer,
furnish and install (EF&I) services. KGP distributes voice, video,
data and wireless products of more than 1,500 manufacturers,
ranging from basic communications craft tools and supplies to
broadband network equipment. Markets served include Regional Bell Operating Companies (RBOCs), independent telephone
companies, municipalities, public utilities, contractors, installation companies, OEMs and Internet service providers.
BroadBand ProPerties
Magazine
Invites You to the Broadband Properties
Summit 2010
April 26 • 28, 2010
InterContinental Hotel • Dallas
Addison, Texas
The Leading Conference on
Broadband Technologies and Services
WHO SHOULD ATTEND?
Real Estate Developers • Property Owners
• Independent Telcos • Municipal Officials • Private
Cable Operators • Town Planners • Economic
Development Professionals • Architects and Builders
• System Operators • Investors • Utility Organizations
• System Integrators
Visit www.bbpmag.com and
secure your participation
today, or call 877-588-1649.
July/August 2009 | www.broadbandproper ties.com | BROADBAND PROPERTIES |
61
Leviton Manufacturing
www.leviton.com
718-229-4040
Key Products: Premises wiring, outside plant, central office
solutions and home automation products
Summary: Founded in 1906, Leviton Manufacturing is located in Little Neck, New York, and provides voice, data and
home networking products for industrial, commercial, OEM
and residential markets as well as basic electrical infrastructure
and energy management products. Leviton takes fiber connectivity all the way from the central office to the jack inside
the house, with fiber-to-the-home solutions including optical
distribution cabinets, pedestals, drop terminals, network interface devices, fiber optic enclosures, optical splice components
and accessories and fiber optic cable assemblies. The voice and
data division produces both fiber and copper products at its
manufacturing complex in Bothell, Washington. Residential
structured cabling and home control products are offered to
builders and homeowners through Leviton Integrated Networks and Controls. In January 2007, Leviton joined forces
with Microsoft to offer homeowners a way to remotely control
lighting and other Z-Wave-enabled home automation schemes
using many popular consumer electronic products. Last year
Leviton acquired ControlThink, a home and building control
software and services company. In September 2008, the company teamed up with ViewSonic Corp. to combine its Vizia RF
+ wireless home lighting with ViewSonic’s Z-Wave technologybased touch panel.
LTS Group
www.LTSCompany.com; www.mycomspan.com;
www.ledcor.com
858-566-6030
Key Products: Development, design, deployment,
operation and maintenance of fiber optic and wireless
communications networks
Summary: Headquartered in San Diego, California, with offices throughout the US and Canada, LTS Group is an operations outsource partner that provides its customers with
solutions ranging from designing, building and maintaining
national and regional networks to high-volume field operations
work. LTS has more than 400 telecom technicians in addition to mobile project-oriented experienced field deployment
crews. This past year, LTS re-entered the near-shore submarine
market and expanded its suite of services in the wireless space.
In 2007, the LTS Group acquired local telecommunications
operator ComSpan USA to form ComSpan Communications,
a full-service FTTP network operator in Oregon with a strategy of expanding into neighboring states. ComSpan now oper-
62
ates four fiber-to-the-home networks in addition to its original
Roseburg network. LTS is part of the Ledcor Group of Companies, a multibillion-dollar private construction and managed
services company with over 60 years of industry experience
and more than 5,000 employees. Ledcor provides managed
telecommunication services, building construction, heavy civil
construction, industrial construction and property development services across Canada and the US. The Canadian headquarters of the parent company is in Vancouver.
LUS Fiber
www.lus.org, www.lusfiber.com
337-993-4237
Key Products: Digital voice, video, Internet access and
community intranet access over an FTTH network
Summary: Lafayette Utilities System, a department of the
Lafayette, Louisiana, Consolidated Government, operates
LUS Fiber, the first community-owned all-fiber optic network
in Louisiana. The utility, which had operated a wholesale fiber
network since 2002, began offering triple-play services to residents and small businesses early this year after prevailing in a
legal battle that lasted for several years. When the buildout is
completed in 2011, the network will pass all of the premises
in this city of about 120,000 – making it the largest municipal network in the United States. LUS involved the community to an unusual degree in planning the network and
the services to be delivered over it, holding a series of public
forums to discover what local residents and businesses wanted
from the fiber-to-the-home network and proactively trying
to avoid increasing the digital divide. Based on community
input, LUS Fiber not only offers residential Internet access at
speeds up to 50 Mbps (upstream as well as downstream), but
provides all subscribers with symmetrical 100 Mbps access to
a peer-to-peer community intranet. Another unusual offering
is the TV Web portal, which provides basic Internet access
to residents without a computer. Additional high-bandwidth
applications are planned for the future.
Martin Group
www.martin-group.com
877-996-9646
Key Products: BSS/OSS solutions, business and engineering
services
Summary: Founded in 1970, Martin Group is a global provider
of enterprise-wide business support systems/operations support
systems (BSS/OSS) solutions, next-generation engineering services and consulting services. With nearly 40 years of communications experience, Martin Group provides solutions and ser-
| BROADBAND PROPERTIES | www.broadbandproper ties.com | July/August 2009
vices that enable communications providers to offer any service
over any network. The company’s team of software developers,
engineers, regulatory specialists and business process experts
serve more than 250 clients around the world. Martin Group
is headquartered in Mitchell, South Dakota, with additional offices in Rapid City, South Dakota, and Missoula, Montana.
MetaSwitch
www.metaswitch.com
510-748-8230
Key Products: Class 4/5 softswitch, application suite,
subscriber interface, network management system
Summary: MetaSwitch is a provider of carrier systems and
software solutions that power the migration of communications networks to open, packet-based architectures. The
MetaSwitch open softswitch architecture enables the delivery
of VoIP, TDM and next-generation telephony services, and interoperates with a wide range of legacy equipment. MetaSphere
is a unified set of communications services, including Hosted
IP PBX, designed to create new revenue streams for network
PBN’s next generation
operators and to provide a cost-effective solution for modernizing legacy services. CommPortal is a subscriber interface
enabling access to key telephony and messaging applications
from the subscriber’s phone, TV, mobile device and computer.
MetaView Network Management System enables MetaSwitch
networks to be provisioned and administered through a GUI
client or via integration with third-party OSS platforms. Based
on open standards, including IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS),
MetaSwitch solutions scale from a few hundred to millions
of subscribers. MetaSwitch has more than 900 deployments
worldwide, ranging from Tier 1 global carriers to regional
service providers and including operators of wireline, cellular, broadband wireless, cable and fiber networks. For 2008,
MetaSwitch reported revenues of $118.1 million, with profits
of $22.2 million. The company is privately held by investment
firms Francisco Partners and Sequoia Capital, as well as by the
Employee Benefit Trust (EBT).
Michels Corporation
www.michels.us
920-583-3132
Key Products: Fiber optic network design and construction,
including outside plant construction, structured cabling
and fiber splicing and testing
terminal makes it easy for customers to deploy a true triple-
play solution with a flick of a switch. Through a strong history in broadband access solutions, PBN really
understands the nuts and bolts to designing and developing products and solutions that make real technical
sense to Network Operators and their customers. A single box provides all functionality for an entire
community network with up to 512 subscribers per GEOLT unit. Options for CATV RF overlay and RFoG
return paths are readily available to support legacy DOCSIS and video on demand applications as well.
ADVANCED MEDIA TECHNOLOGIES®, INC. 720 SOUTH POWERLINE ROAD., SUITE G, DEERFIELD BEACH, FL 33442
DIRECT 954.427.5711 • TOLL FREE 888.293.5856 • FAX 954.427.9688 • EMAIL: SALES@AMT.COM • WWW.AMT.COM
July/August 2009 | www.broadbandproper ties.com | BROADBAND PROPERTIES |
63
Summary: Michels Corporation, an international engineering
and construction contractor based in Brownsville, Wisconsin,
began in 1959 as a pipeline construction company and entered
the telecommunications industry four years later. Today it has
two divisions serving the telecommunications industry. Michels Communications specializes in fiber optic network construction in all sectors of the industry, from local telephone
and long distance companies to cable TV providers, education
and the enterprise sectors. In 1983, Michels was one of the first
companies to construct fiber lines and it now constructs thousands of miles of fiber optic and broadband networks each year.
Mi-Tech Services, the second telecom division, is a full-service
engineering firm offering FTTx solutions including cable restoration, outside plant planning and design, project management and right-of-way acquisition.
Montclair Fiber Optics
www.montclairfiber.com
608-831-4440
Key Products: Optical splitters, CWDMs, WDMs and
amplifiers
Summary: Since 1995 Montclair has been offering optical
products such as PLC splitters, CWDMs, WDMs, attenua-
s
e
t
a
l
u
t
a
Congr
Broadband
Properties
Magazine
For becoming a
Silver Sponsor at the
2010 Broadband
Properties Summit.
For more information on Multicom,
visit www.multicominc.com.
You are cordially invited to come see Multicom
at the upcoming
April 26 – 28, 2010
InterContinental Hotel – Dallas
Addison, Texas
The Leading Conference on
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To Exhibit or Sponsor, contact: Irene Prescott at
irene@broadbandproperties.com, or call 316-733-9122.
For other inquiries, call 877-588-1649,
or visit www.bbpmag.com.
64
“The broadband industry’s pace
of innovation and consolidation
continues as the industry
competition has intensified.
As a result, the business case
for building owners/developers
along with service providers for
the delivery of broadband has
never been greater, or filled
with as many choices.”
– Bruce Blackwood, General Manager, Suttle
tors, high-power amplifiers, EDFAs for CATV, CATV optical
receiver modules, DBS optical receiver modules, media converters, optical Ethernet switches, optical network units, OEO
converters, circulators, interconnectivity products and fiber
management and accessories, alldesigned and environmentally tested to meet industry-standard (Telcordia) requirements
for FTTx applications. The company’s products are installed
throughout North America, enduring some of the harshest environments. Customers include telcos, CATV operators, utilities and municipalities, developers, contractors/installers and
OEMs. The company has seven employees.
Motorola Home & Networks Mobility
Motorola Enterprise Mobility Solutions
www.motorola.com
Home & Networks Mobility: 888-944-HELP
Enterprise Mobility: 866-515-5825
Key Products: Broadband, video and access technologies
including fiber-to-the-x solutions, RFOG, metro WiFi,
modems, VoIP, WiMAX and LTE, home entertainment
and networking
Summary: Motorola Home and Networks Mobility delivers
advanced broadband services to the home, in the home and
beyond. Delivery mechanisms include fiber optic, xDSL, and
hybrid fiber coax in addition to WiMAX and LTE networks.
Fiber solutions include GPON central-office and customerpremises equipment, a Passive Optical LAN enterprise solution, and an RFOG solution for cable operators. The company’s digital video headend technology feeds more than 80
million homes worldwide. Motorola Enterprise Mobility Solutions offers enterprise, government and municipal customers
wireless broadband technologies and applications designed to
| BROADBAND PROPERTIES | www.broadbandproper ties.com | July/August 2009
seamlessly deliver IP coverage to indoor and outdoor spaces.
The portfolio includes point-to-multipoint and point-to-point
fixed broadband solutions, mesh wide-area networks, enterprise wireless LAN, Motorola AirDefense wireless security and
WiMAX solutions for private and public networks. In 2008,
Motorola had sales of $30.1 billion.
designed to meet the needs of both legacy plant and new technology applications; the company’s new product development
has been focused on fiber optic–based solutions, including
new hinged overlay molding for FTTH deployment in MDU
buildings. Based in Elyria, Ohio, Multilink is privately owned
and has 162 employees.
Multicom
www.multicominc.com
800-423-2594
Occam Networks
www.occamnetworks.com
805-692-2900
Key Products: Fiber optic cables, connectors, receivers,
amplifiers, attenuators, enclosures, splitters, splicers,
tools, coaxial cables, hybrid fiber and coax systems,
optoelectronics; design and VoIP services
Key Products: IP- and Ethernet-based Broadband Loop
Carrier and related telecommunications access equipment
Summary: Multicom is a manufacturer and full-line stocking
distributor of broadband products for end-to-end integration
of communications solutions. Established in 1982, Multicom
has a multimillion-dollar inventory, stocking more than 13,000
products from more than 270 of the world’s major manufacturers. These products are used to acquire, process and distribute
audio, video, television and data signals over fiber optics, copper, and coax cable. The company offers versatile solutions for
FTTx, MFH2 and the digital transition. Multicom’s design and
engineering team has worked throughout the United States,
Latin America and Europe. Recent design projects include the
Madeira Condominiums on Marco Island, Florida; the Norris
Inpatient Tower in University of Southern California University
Hospital in Los Angeles; the Puerto Rican Convention Center
in San Juan; the National Park Seminary in Washington, DC;
and the Ohio Reformatory for Women in Marysville, Ohio.
Multicom also sells retail and wholesale VoIP services through
its Mconnect subsidiary. Multicom is headquartered in Orlando, Florida, and maintains sales offices, rep agencies and subdistributors throughout North America and Latin America.
Summary: Occam Networks is a broadband access supplier
offering multiservice access platform (MSAP) solutions based
on pure packet technologies. The company’s broadband access solutions enable service providers to offer voice, data and
video services over copper and fiber. Occam systems emphasize a combination of simple design, flexibility and scalability,
especially important for service providers transitioning from
all-copper networks to copper/fiber or all-fiber networks. More
than 2 million BLC 6000 ports are currently deployed at more
than 315 service providers in North America and the Caribbean. In 2008-2009, Occam announced its first Tier 2 GPON
design win; launched the Occam OS 6.1 operating system, a
common OS that supports both copper and optical products;
and added a line of six GPON optical network terminals with
extensive configuration options for residential and business
services. The company offers on its Web site a comprehensive
repository of information and commentary on the broadband
stimulus package created by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.
Multilink
www.multilinkone.com
440-366-6966
OFS
www.ofsoptics.com
770-798-4000; 888-342-3743
Key Products: Network power supplies, enclosures and
cabinets; fiber distribution and cable management
solutions; MDU enclosures; raceway and pathway
solutions
Key Products: Optical fiber, optical cable, fiber management
and connectivity products for homes, businesses and
MDUs, splicers, network design services
Summary: Multilink, which was founded in 1983, continues
to evolve from a manufacturer of telecommunications network
components to a worldwide supplier and integrator of end-toend bundled solutions. The company’s customers include independent telcos, regional Bell operating companies, utilities,
local area network providers and cable TV MSOs. Products are
Summary: OFS, a Furukawa company, designs, manufactures
and supplies optical fiber, optical fiber cable, specialty photonics, and optical connectivity products and solutions for many
applications. Headquartered near Atlanta, Georgia, OFS is a
global provider with facilities in North America and Europe
and sales offices around the world. The company’s heritage goes
back to Alexander Graham Bell and the invention of the tele-
July/August 2009 | www.broadbandproper ties.com | BROADBAND PROPERTIES |
65
phone, and includes technology powerhouses such as Bell Labs,
AT&T and Lucent Technologies. Since 2001 OFS has been a
subsidiary of Furukawa Electric, a global leader in optical communications founded in 1884 and based in Japan. OFS’ latest
breakthrough, ultra-bend-insensitive EZ-Bend optical cables,
offer fast and easy installation for MDU and in-home wiring
applications. Other OFS brands include the FOX Solution (Fiber Optics to the X), an end-to-end FTTx offering to fiber-connect homes, businesses and multiple dwelling units; the V-Linx
Spool & Play Solution for MDU applications; FITEL fusion
splicers; full-spectrum AllWave FLEX ZWP bend-optimized
fiber; ORBITAL fiber management cabinets; and all-dry Fortex
DT and AccuRibbon DC cables. OFS can also help optimize
network designs with its OptiCost FTTx Modeling Services.
On Trac
www.ontracinc.net
423-317-0009
Key Products: Fiber splicing, FTTH installation (video,
voice, data), commercial installation, MDU design/
installation, consulting, system audits, inventory
management, project management, safety training
Summary: Based in Tennessee, On Trac provides services for
the FTTH industry, including telephone companies, utilities
and municipalities across the country. On Trac has connected
over 75,000 premises to FTTH networks, with both aerial and
underground drops. Customers include Auburn Essential Services in Auburn, Indiana; Bristol Tennessee Essential Services
in Bristol, Tennessee; Clarksville Department of Electricity in
Clarksville, Tennessee; Dalton Utilities in Dalton, Georgia;
and GVTC in New Braunfels, Texas.
Customer-Premises Equipment
(Other than optical network terminals)
Includes set-top boxes, modems, routers, residential gateways, etc.
Company Name 2Wire
Web Address
www.2wire.com
Actiontec
www.actiontec.com
Advanced Digital
Broadcast
www.adbglobal.com
Alcatel-Lucent
www.alcatel-lucent.com
Amino
www.aminocom.com
Arris
www.arrisi.com
Aztech
www.aztech.com
Cisco Systems
www.cisco.com
Comtrend
Eagle Broadband www.comtrend.com
www.eaglebroadband.com
Entone
www.entone.com
Leviton
www.leviton.com
Motorola
www.motorola.com
PacketFront
www.packetfront.com
Pirelli Broadband Solutions
Ruckus Wireless
Samsung
www.pirelli.com
www.ruckuswireless.com
www.samsung.com
Telect
www.telect.com
Thomson
www.thomson.net
ZyXEL Communications
66
www.us.zyxel.com
Optelian
www.optelian.com
877-225-9428, 770-690-9575
Key Products: Optical transport systems for access, metro
and regional networks, test equipment
Summary: Optelian’s LightGAIN systems provide transparent, carrier-grade optical transport for telecom, multiservice
operator (MSO), utility and enterprise customers worldwide.
LightGAIN is used for xWDM, reach extension, path protection and FTTx applications in all parts of the network from enterprise and access to long-haul. Power-saving LightGAIN features pluggable and tunable optics from 10 Mbps to 10 Gbps,
amplification and dispersion compensation, and complete network management with optical service channel (OSC). LightGAIN 3060 is ideal for enterprise and remote terminals, 5140
for small power consumption and footprint, and 6140 for high
port density. Founded in 2002, Optelian has facilities in Ottawa and in the Atlanta area. The company’s design and manufacturing is fully in-house in North America, and it has sales
and support partnerships worldwide.
Optical Cable Corporation
www.occfiber.com
540-265-0690
Key Products: Fiber optic and copper cabling, connectors,
boxes, other networking solutions
Summary: Optical Cable Corporation manufactures fiber optic and copper data communications cabling and connectivity solutions primarily for the enterprise market, offering an
integrated suite of products that operate as a system solution
or seamlessly integrate with other providers’ offerings. Opti-
| BROADBAND PROPERTIES | www.broadbandproper ties.com | July/August 2009
cal Cable Corporation pioneered the design and production of
fiber optic cables for demanding military field applications, as
well as fiber optic cables suitable for both indoor and outdoor
use. With the acquisition of SMP Data Communications in
May 2008, the company gained copper connectivity data communications solutions. Offerings include products designed for
commercial, enterprise network, data center, residential and
campus installations and customized products for specialty applications and harsh environments including military, industrial, mining and broadcast applications. Products include fiber
optic cable, copper and fiber optic connectors, copper and fiber
optic patch cords, racks, cabinets, datacom enclosures, patch
panels, face plates, multimedia boxes and cable and connectivity management accessories. Founded in 1983, Optical Cable
Corporation is headquartered in Roanoke, Virginia, with offices and manufacturing and warehouse facilities located in
Roanoke and near Asheville, North Carolina.
multiplatform industry. As an authorized distributor for DISH
Network, the company offers the full lineup of DISH Network
hardware and content to operators. Pace carries the industry’s
most recognized product manufacturers as well as a private-label product line. The company offers end-to-end hardware and
content solutions for PCOs, REITs, retailers, property owners,
operators, and telcos targeting triple-play communities. Turnkey services include system design, technical support, ‘Built,
Balanced and Burned’ analog and QAM headends, billing and
customer support. The company provides its proprietary Master Vendor Procurement services to Fortune 100 clients in the
consumer electronics industry. Founded in 1972, Pace operates
from its headquarters in Rochester, Minnesota, and through
facilities in Denver, Colorado, and Ningbo, China.
Pacific Broadband Networks (PBN)
www.pbnglobal.com, www.pbnamericas.com
703-579-6777
Key Products: FTTH electronics and network management
software; optical nodes for HFC networks; optical
headend equipment; optical accessories including couplers,
patch cords and multiplexers
Pace International
www.paceintl.com
507-424-4900; 800-444-7223
Key Products: Distribution of DISH Network content and
hardware and DISH Network-approved installation
materials and accessories; hardware and tools for
commercial-grade satellite TV, cable TV, home theater
and audio; tools and kitting services; meters and test
equipment; Televes QAM distribution equipment; fiber
products; technical support and training, SBCA training,
call center; billing services; back-office support services
Summary: Pace is a national distributor of hardware, content
and installation tools for communications companies in the
Summary: PBN is a supplier of advanced optical broadband
access products and network solutions. Its headend equipment, network management and access products are suitable
for HFC, FTTH, RFOG, Ethernet and DOCSIS applications.
PBS’s product portfolio is designed to enable network operators to bridge the gap between existing and emerging technologies. Customers include major telcos and MSOs serving tens
of millions of subscribers around the world. PBN is privately
held and based in Australia, with research and development
facilities in Melbourne and Beijing and offices in Australia,
China, Europe and the Americas. PBN is also well represented
by channel partners globally.
“Going beyond the emerging services currently available,
such as video downloads and uploads and the tools that make
working at home possible, we’ll find applications like remote energy
management, remote health monitoring and home concierge service
(in MDUs). All of these capabilities require a broadband connection with
enough bandwidth to support these applications....Verizon has
invested in those capacities to ensure that our customers always
get the best service at the speeds and capacities they need.
No broadband customer should ask for anything less.”
– Eric Cevis, President, Verizon Enhanced Communities
July/August 2009 | www.broadbandproper ties.com | BROADBAND PROPERTIES |
67
Preformed Line Products
www.preformed.com
440-461-5200
Key Products: Cable anchoring and control hardware and
systems, fiber optic and copper splice closures, and highspeed cross-connect devices
Summary: Founded in 1947, Preformed Line Products is an
international designer and manufacturer of products and systems employed in the construction and maintenance of overhead and underground networks for energy, communications
and broadband network companies. PLP’s customer base in-
cludes telecommunications network operators, cable television
and broadband service providers, power utilities, corporations
and enterprise networks, government agencies and educational
institutions. Headquartered in Cleveland, Ohio, the company operates three domestic manufacturing centers located in
Rogers, Arkansas; Albuquerque, New Mexico; and Albemarle,
North Carolina. PLP serves worldwide markets through international operations in Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, England, Mexico, New Zealand, Poland, South Africa, Spain and
Thailand. Net sales for 2008 were $269.7 million.
Fiber Management
Includes cabinets, cross-connect panels, splitters, aggregators, pedestals, connectors, duct, conduit, etc.
Company Name Web Address
3M Company
A-D Technologies
www.3M.com/telecom
www.adtechnologies.com
ADC AFL Telecommunications Alliance Fiber Optic
Products
Company Name Web Address
Leviton www.leviton.com
MRV Communications
www.mrv.com
www.adc.com
Multicom
www.multicominc.com
www.afltele.com
Multilink
www.multilinkone.com
Occam Networks
www.afop.com
www.occamnetworks.com
OFS www.ofsoptics.com
Antronix
www.antronix.com
Optelian
www.optelian.com
Calient Networks
www.calient.com
www.calix.com
Optical Cable
Corporation www.occfiber.com
www.channellcomm.com
Preformed Line
Products
www.preformed.com
Calix Channell Commercial
Corporation Charles Industries Ltd. www.charles
industries.com
Prysmian Radiant Communications
www.rccfiber.com
Clearfield
www.clearfield
connection.com
SENKO Advanced
Components www.senko.com
www.commscope.com
Sumitomo Electric
Lightwave www.sumitomoelectric.com
CommScope Corning Cable Systems www.corning
cablesystems.com
Draka Communications
www.draka
americas.com
Emerson Network Power www.emerson
networkpower.com
Emtelle www.emtelle.com
Ericsson www.ericsson.com
FiberZone Networks
Harmonic
68
www.fiberzonenetworks.com
www.harmonicinc.com
www.prysmian.com
Suttle
www.suttleonline.com
Telect www.telect.com
Tellabs www.tellabs.com
TeraSpan
www.teraspan.com
Timbercon www.timbercon.com
TXP
Tyco Electronics www.txpcorp.com
www.tycoelectronics.com
Westek Electronics
www.westek.com
Zhone Technologies www.zhone.com
| BROADBAND PROPERTIES | www.broadbandproper ties.com | July/August 2009
Prysmian
www.prysmian.com
803-951-4800; 800-713-5312
cabling system for multiple dwelling unit applications, enables
fast, low-cost rollout of FTTH.
Key Products: Optical fibers and telecommunication cables
Summary: Headquartered in Milan, Italy, with US headquarters in Lexington, South Carolina, Prysmian has multiple production facilities worldwide and supplies products to most of
the world’s largest telecom operators, including optical fiber,
optical cable, copper cable, FTTx passive solutions, premises/
data cable and connectivity hardware. With its two business
divisions, Energy Cables and Systems and Telecom Cables and
Systems, Prysmian boasts a global presence with subsidiaries in
38 countries, 53 plants in 21 countries, 7 research and development centers in Europe, North America and South America, and more than 12,000 employees. In the past few years
Prysmian has supplied millions of meters of fiber for FTTH
in the US alone, where projects range in size from individual
municipalities to large-scale rollouts. Prysmian’s sales in 2008
exceeded 5 billion euro ($7 billion). Last year the company
announced a contract with Andorra Telecom that will help the
Principality of Andorra become the first country in the world
to provide a direct optical fiber link to all homes and businesses. Recent product releases include the bend-insensitive
CasaLight family of fibers which, together with the VertiCasa
Quanta Services
www.quantaservices.com
713-629-7600
Key Products: Design, construction, installation and
maintenance of broadband fiber optic, copper, coaxial
cable and wireless networks
Summary: Quanta offers the entire spectrum of broadband
installation and maintenance services, whether for inside or
outside plant facilities; analog or digital signals; coaxial, fiber
optic or hybrid transmission; or residential or commercial networks. The company provides the expertise to get headend facilities up and running and supports all the requisite existing
and emerging technologies. Services include rack installation,
engineering, long-term site and system planning and project
management. Headquartered in Houston, Texas, Quanta,
which has about 14,000 employees, has offices in 40 states and
operates throughout the US and Canada. Revenues for 2008
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69
were $3.78 billion, compared with $2.66 billion for 2007. Customers include AT&T, Qwest, Verizon Communications and
many leading energy utilities.
Spirent Communications
www.spirent.com
408-752-7100
Key Products: Remote diagnostics, handheld solutions
and lab test solutions to evaluate performance of nextgeneration technologies
Senko Advanced Components
www.senko.com
508-481-9999
Key Products: Fiber distribution panels, network access
terminals, fiber protection equipment, fiber cleaning
and inspection equipment, splitter modules, couplers,
attenuators, connectors and adapters
Summary: Senko Advanced Components develops, manufactures, markets and distributes more than 1,000 fiber optic
products for the telecom and datacom industries worldwide.
Its “Intelligent Building Solution” facilitates the distribution
of advanced high-bandwidth services such as HDTV and telemedicine within commercial buildings, multifamily buildings,
hotels, hospitals and educational institutions. Founded in 1997
and headquartered in Boston, Senko Advanced Components is
a subsidiary of Senko Group in Japan. It has 1,500 employees
and is privately held.
Summary: Spirent provides tools for service management and
field testing of new communications services and applications,
as well as enabling large companies and governments to secure
and manage their networks. In addition, Spirent’s engineers
provide counsel to many of the leading communications standards organizations and have pioneered testing of Ethernet
networks, IP telephony, VPNs, triple play, CDMA applications, and location-based services. Currently, Spirent is helping to test the first deployments of next-generation networks in
Asia, Europe and North America. Areas of expertise include:
Fiber and Fiber Cable
These firms supply optical fiber and cable for fiber access deployments.
Company Name 3M Company
Web Address
www.3M.com/telecom
ADC AFL Telecommunications www.afltele.com
Belden www.belden.com
Smithville
www.smithville.net
www.smithvilledigital.net
812-876-2211
CommScope Key Products: Telephone, long distance, Internet, cellular
and home security services
Draka Communications
Summary: Headquartered in Ellettsville, Indiana, privately
owned Smithville is Indiana’s largest independent telecom
company. The company is currently working on bringing
FTTH services, with 100 Mbps residential Internet access, to
30,000 residential homes and businesses in southern Indiana.
Its subsidiary Smithville Digital operates the Indiana Digital
Gateway, a Metro Ethernet network providing connectivity for
businesses, health care providers and government offices near
Bloomington and French Lick, Indiana. The Digital Gateway’s
fiber optic technology allows for both last-mile connectivity and
network management solutions to help customers meet their
data transmission needs. Founded in 1922 as Smithville Telephone Company, today Smithville employs about 200 people.
Corning, Corning
Cable Systems www.commscope.com
www.corning.com,
www.corningcable
systems.com
www.draka
americas.com
Emtelle www.emtelle.com
Ericsson www.ericsson.com
General Cable www.generalcable.com
Multicom
www.multicominc.com
Nexans www.nexans.com,
www.nexansinterface.com
OFS www.ofsoptics.com
Optical Cable
Corporation www.occfiber.com
Prysmian Sumitomo Electric Lightwave
Timbercon 70
www.adc.com
| BROADBAND PROPERTIES | www.broadbandproper ties.com | July/August 2009
www.prysmian.com
www.sumitomo
electric.com
www.timbercon.com
broadband networking (DSL, gigabit Ethernet, and IP), convergence (VoIP, IP VPNs, IPTV), next-generation Internet
(IPv6), wireless (CDMA, UMTS, location-based services), enterprise networks (load testing, system performance, network
security) and satellite navigation (GPS, GLONASS, Galileo).
Spirent’s corporate headquarters are in the United Kingdom
and its operational headquarters are in Sunnyvale, California.
The company, which has 1,500 employees worldwide, had revenues of $424.6 million in 2008.
Steeplechase Networks
www.scnets.com
413-229-0030
Key Products: Network planning and support, application
aggregation
Summary: Steeplechase Networks is a is a software and services provider that partners with network operators to aggregate
and deliver applications and content to for public and private
community networks throughout North America ­– ranging
from a community-based WISP in Massachusetts, to wireless
broadband and security infrastructure for gated communities
in Florida and Southern California, to a regional FTTH network in Virginia. Steeplechase brings support and technology
to network operators, enabling them to deliver advanced Web
services to their subscribers. Steeplechase’s product suite enables
network operators to deliver more than just “triple-play” services
but allows them to make the communities they serve healthier,
greener, and smarter. Steeplechase selects and tests best-in-class
network equipment and value-added services, including essentials like remote backup and restore services as well as specialinterest features like energy management, gaming networks,
video services, online music lessons and medical monitoring.
Based in Southfield, Massachusetts, Steeplechase was founded
in 2005 and is privately held.
Sumitomo Electric Lightwave
www.sumitomoelectric.com
919-541-8100; 800-358-7378
Key Products: Optical fiber cable, fusion splicers and
accessories, termination products, splitters and other
network passive components, FTTH solutions,
FutureFLEX Air-blown Fiber Infrastructure for the LAN.
Summary: Sumitomo may be best known for introducing the
first peelable optical fiber ribbon and mass fusion splicing to
the US. Recent FTTH introductions include the industry’s
first ribbon drop cable and an expanded dry cable line with
new dry loose-tube cable. Sumitomo Electric Lightwave serves
the major public network provider, ILEC, CATV, municipal
and enterprise network markets. A wholly owned subsidiary
of Sumitomo Electric Industries (SEI), Sumitomo Electric
Lightwave is located in Research Triangle Park, North Caro-
lina. Its many first-to-market introductions in North America
include gel-free ribbon cable, hostile-environment cable, bendinsensitive drop cables, automated cleavers, and the industry’s
only dual-heater splicers. SEL was also first in North America
to introduce air-blown fiber technology, its FutureFLEX Airblown Fiber enterprise network infrastructure system. Because
any type and count of fiber can be blown in and out of the network microduct undamaged, the system allows the provider to
install only the amount of fiber and bandwidth needed at a given time. FutureFLEX customers include the Pentagon; Mayo
Clinic and other hospitals and systems; National Institutes of
Health (NIH); DFW, McCarren, Logan, and many other airports; MGM Grand; NASA; Toyota; Johns Hopkins University; and Duke Energy Center. Sumitomo Electric Lightwave
was established in 1984. Its parent company generated revenues
of $21.6 billion for the year ending in March, 2009.
SureWest Communications
www.surewest.com
866-787-3937
Key Products: Video, voice and data services delivered over
fiber-to-the-home, hybrid fiber/coaxial (HFC) and DSL
access networks
Summary: SureWest, the major telecom player in the Sacramento area, is one of the largest fiber-to-the-home providers in
the United States with more than 150,000 residential customers and 15,000 business customers in the greater Sacramento
and Kansas City regions. The company sold its wireless operations to Verizon in May and is expanding its broadband business, as evidenced by its 2008 acquisition of Everest Broadband, a data, video and voice provider in the Kansas City area.
SureWest, which has about 900 employees, posted revenues of
$230.4 million for 2008.
Suttle
www.suttleonline.com
800-852-8662
Key Products: Structured cabling solutions; enclosures and
connectors for voice, data and video equipment
Summary: Founded in 1910, Suttle is a manufacturer of communication connectivity products for major service providers
and installers. The company’s legacy was built on traditional
telephony connection hardware. Today, Suttle is one of the only
manufacturers capable of supplying a complete, high-quality,
triple-play connectivity offering for voice, data, and video communications. Its fiber connectivity product line includes a field
termination system, connectors, fiber panels, assemblies and
a variety of other complementary products. Headquartered
July/August 2009 | www.broadbandproper ties.com | BROADBAND PROPERTIES |
71
in Hector, Minnesota, Suttle is a wholly owned subsidiary of
Communications Systems Inc., a publicly traded company.
The company’s quality management systems are ISO 9001 and
TL9000 registered. Sales in 2008 were $44.4 million.
Team Fishel
www.teamfishel.com
614-274-8100; 800-347-4351
Key Products: Utility construction and network installation
services
Summary: With more than 70 years of experience in the telecommunications industry, Team Fishel specializes in the design
and construction of first-mile residential fiber optic networks.
Customers include telecommunications and broadband communications providers, gas distribution companies, electrical
utility companies, government agencies, public and private enterprises, commercial and residential developers, general con-
tractors and educational institutions. Team Fishel’s Corningcertified FTTx designers and network engineers work closely
with customers to design the optical access architecture, secure
rights of way and all the required permits with the municipality, and coordinate with the developers and other utilities. By
designing residential duct systems and using joint trench installation techniques, Team Fishel provides cost-effective FTTx
delivery systems and new revenue opportunities for greenfield
deployments. Established in October 1936, Team Fishel now
has 22 offices nationwide and 1,250 “teammates,” or employees. The company is headquartered in Columbus, Ohio.
Telco Systems
www.telco.com
800-227-0937
Key Products: Carrier Ethernet access products including
active Ethernet (P2P) CPE gateways, demarcation devices,
aggregation and multiservice switches
Summary: Founded in 1972 and based in Foxboro, Massachusetts, Telco Systems, a wholly-owned subsidiary of BATM
Network Management Solutions
Includes OSS and software for network monitoring, optimization,
provisioning, service management, subscriber management, billing, etc.
Company Name Web Address
ADTRAN
Alcatel-Lucent
www.adtran.com
www.alcatel-lucent.com
Allot Communications
www.allot.com
Company Name Fine Point Technologies
Harmonic
www.amdocs.com
Highdeal (SAP)
Anritsu
www.anritsu.com
HP
www.arbornetworks.com
Aricent
www.aricent.com
Logisense
Martin Group
Arris www.arrisi.com
MetaSwitch
Bivio Networks
www.bivio.net
Openet
Calix
www.calix.com
Capanis Networks
www.capanis.com
Cisco Systems www.cisco.com
Comarch
www.comarch.com
Communications Data Group
www.finepoint.com
Great Lakes Data Systems
Amdocs
Arbor Networks
Web Address
Optelian
PacketFront
Phoenix Broadband Procera Networks
www.glds.com
www.harmonicinc.com
www.highdeal.com
www.hp.com
www.logisense.com
www.martin-group.com
www.metaswitch.com
www.openet.com
www.optelian.com
www.packetfront.com
www.phoenixbroadband.com
www.proceranetworks.com
www.cdg.ws
Sandvine
www.sandvine.com
Comverse
www.comverse.com
Telcordia
www.telcordia.com
Convergys
www.convergys.com
Tellabs
www.tellabs.com
ECI Telecom
Ericsson
ETI Software Solutions
72
www.ecitele.com
www.ericsson.com
www.etisoftware.com
UTStarcom
Xangati
Zeugma Systems
| BROADBAND PROPERTIES | www.broadbandproper ties.com | July/August 2009
www.utstar.com
www.xangati.com
www.zeugmasystems.com
Advanced Communications, offers multiservice Carrier Ethernet access and demarcation solutions that enable carriers
and service providers to deploy highly reliable and manageable
Ethernet services to business and residential subscribers. The
product suite includes solutions for residential FTTH, intelligent demarcation and Ethernet service delivery for commercial
applications, and Metro Ethernet Access Rings. In February
2008, Telco Systems acquired Charles Industries’ broadband
multiplexer product line. This year the company launched an
active Ethernet portal, www.active-eth.com, to provide resources for potential FTTH deployers. Telco also announced
the expansion of its FTTH offerings with the introduction of
the EdgeGate 242W, an indoor wireless-enabled active Ethernet residential gateway, and an enhanced EdgeGate 483 outdoor CPE gateway with dual 1 Gigabit uplinks.
Telect
www.telect.com
800-551-4567
Key Products: Fiber optic and copper connectivity solutions,
network power management, outdoor enclosures, cable
management systems, cables and patch cords, home
networking solutions
Summary: With more than a quarter century of experience
in communications connectivity and power management,
Telect provides solutions for the network’s physical layer from
the central office or data center to the outside plant and into
the home. In addition to central-office communications solutions including cable management, copper and Ethernet connectivity, fiber optic distribution, power distribution, equipment racks and cabinets, Telect offers outside plant solutions
“Design Nine’s intense focus
on successful planning and
execution of broadband projects
enables us to take our clients
from early-stage business and
financial planning to having
world-class integrated fiber
and wireless networks up
and running quickly.”
- Andrew Cohill, President, Design Nine
for housing network equipment, as well as structured cabling
and access switching systems for the home, MDU/MTU or
small office. Telect is a privately held company headquartered
in Liberty Lake, Washington. The company also has facilities
in Plano, Texas (manufacturing and systems integration) and
Guadalajara, Mexico (manufacturing). Its 700 employees include sales representatives around the globe.
Tellabs
www.tellabs.com
630-798-8800
Key Products: Access networking, digital cross-connect, IP/
Ethernet, managed access, network management, optical
networking and voice quality enhancement technologies
Summary: Tellabs, based in Naperville, Illinois, claims 41 of
the top 50 global telecom service providers as customers for its
access, mobile backhaul, optical networking and business services solutions. Customers include telecom service providers,
independent operating companies, MSO/cable TV companies,
enterprises and government agencies in more than 90 countries. In 2008 Tellabs generated sales of $1.7 billion.
TeraSpan
www.teraspan.com
877-VI-FIBER
Key Products: Micro-trenching fiber optic deployment
solutions
Summary: Formed in 1997, TeraSpan Networks is a privately
owned Canadian company that develops and deploys microtrenched fiber optic networks, primarily for “last mile” fiberto-the-business and fiber-to-the-home applications. TeraSpan’s
Vertical Inlaid Fiber (VIF) System has been deployed globally
for clients including Alcatel-Lucent, Shaw Cable Systems, the
Port of Tacoma and Relacom Norway. In the US, TeraSpan
partners with construction and engineering firms such as HP
Communications to design and install VIF-based networks
for carriers, businesses, schools, hospitals and municipalities.
Compared with traditional underground deployment methods,
TeraSpan’s patented micro-trenched solutions are nonintrusive
and less disruptive to existing infrastructure, significantly reducing deployment time, labor and costs and improving time
to market for new fiber optic services. TeraSpan recently entered into an agreement with construction firm Quanta Services that expands the US footprint of qualified installers of the
TeraSpan VIF System. In addition, Quanta has developed new
equipment, deployment and restoration techniques to further
reduce the cost of TeraSpan installations.
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73
Tetra Tech
www.tetratech.com
626-351-4664
Key Products: Communications services including network
assessment and business planning, program and project
management, property rights acquisition, zoning and
permitting, design and engineering, and operations and
maintenance
Summary: Based in Pasadena, California, Tetra Tech employs
more than 9,000 people in 245 offices worldwide. Tetra Tech
provides development and deployment for wired communications systems. It plans, designs, permits, constructs and maintains cell phone, coaxial cable and fiber optic networks. The
company began in 1966 as an engineering company devoted to
waterways and coastal areas, but branched out in 1997 to include
communications services and now installs fiber optic networks
worldwide. In June 2009, Tetra Tech acquired three companies
that expand its geographic coverage and technical services: Tesoro Corporation, Mussetter Engineering, and ACI Engineering.
In 2008, the company had revenues of $2.14 billion.
Toner Cable Equipment
www.tonercable.com
215-675-2053; 800-523-5947
Key Products: Digital television systems and solutions,
integration of digital headends, conditional access systems,
MPEG encoders, digital signal processing products, fiber
optic cable, fiber links and systems, FTTH, coaxial cable,
passives, connectors, tools, test equipment and amplifiers
Summary: Toner Cable Equipment is a large stocking distributor of television signal distribution equipment used by the cable
television industry, private cable operators, the hospitality industry, educational facilities, business broadcasters and other markets. Toner provides equipment for the digital transition including QAM demods, digital processors and MPEG encoders. It
has provided several large systems and educational facilities with
hundreds of headends. Toner Cable is the largest distributor of
equipment for Blonder Tongue, Pico Macom, RL Drake, Olson Technology, Ortel, Sadelco, Middle Atlantic, Cablematic,
Videotek, Fiber Options and, just announced in April, Blankom.
Toner offers solutions for comprehensive TV signal distribution
over fiber, coax and unshielded twisted pair. Founded 38 years
ago and employing 41 people, Toner Cable Equipment serves
both government and international clients, offering expertise in
international technical standards, formats and requirements. In
addition to its headquarters in Horsham, Pennsylvania, Toner
has divisions in the UK and Latin America.
TraceSpan Communications
www.tracespan.com
734-846-0549
Key Products: Monitoring and analysis systems
74
Summary: Established in 2002, TraceSpan develops and manufactures broadband monitoring solutions. Its performance
analysis products, initially focused on ADSL, ADSL2, ADSL2+
and VDSL2, are designed for technology and chipset vendors,
equipment manufacturers and broadband service providers. Its
monitoring systems, the Phantom line, integrate with Lawful
Test and Measurement Equipment
Company Name Web Address
3M Company/Communication
Markets Division
www.3M.com/telecom
ADC
www.adc.com
AFL Telecommunications www.afltele.com
Agilent
www.agilent.com
Anritsu
www.anritsu.com
Applied Instruments Blonder-Tongue
Laboratories
Corning/Corning Cable Systems
www.appliedin.com
www.blondertongue.com
www.corning.com;
www.corning
cablesystems.com
Emerson Network Power www.emerson
networkpower.com
EXFO
www.exfo.com
Fluke www.fluke.com
Ineoquest
Ixia
JDSU
www.ineoquest.com
www.ixiacom.com
www.jdsu.com
Multidyne Video &
Fiber Optic Systems www.multidyne.com
Optelian
www.optelian.com
RADCOM
www.radcom.com
SENKO Advanced
Components www.senko.com
Spirent Communications www.spirent.com
Sumitomo Electric Lightwave
www.sumitomo
electric.com
Sunrise Telecommunications www.sunrise
telecom.com
Symmetricom www.symmttm.com
Tektronix
www.tektronix.com
Tellabs
www.tellabs.com
TraceSpan
Westek Electronics
| BROADBAND PROPERTIES | www.broadbandproper ties.com | July/August 2009
www.tracespan.com
www.westek.com
Interception solutions to monitor and record data transparently
for use by intelligence gathering agencies and law enforcement
authorities. The recently released GPON Xpert is a modular
tool designed for R&D, laboratory and field application engineers engaged in developing, testing and deploying GPON
standard-compliant solutions. It passively records communications between the OLT (optical line terminal) and ONTs
(optical network terminals) and analyzes their adherence to
the GPON standard, without using any vendor’s chipset. TraceSpan is a private US company with its North American office
in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and a development center in Israel.
TT Technologies
www.tttechnologies.com
800-533-2078
Key Products: Trenchless equipment including piercing tools,
guided boring tools, pneumatic, static and lateral pipe
bursting systems, pipe ramming tools, bentonite mixing
systems, constant-tension winches, directional drills and
mini directional drill rigs
Summary: TT Technologies specializes in trenchless technology, beginning with pneumatic boring tools. Today, with more
than 200 patents worldwide, TT specializes in trenchless ap-
plications for pipe pulling, pipe ramming, pipe bursting, sliplining and directional boring. Its customers are primarily contractors and municipalities. The company offers a nationwide
network of regional customer service offices and distribution
locations. It also presents comprehensive, hands-on training
seminars at its corporate offices in Aurora, Illinois, as well as regional shows, seminars and demonstrations throughout North
America each year.
Tyco Electronics
www.tycoelectronics.com
610-893-9800
Key Products: Fiber optic cabling and the complete range of
FTTH equipment between the optical line terminal and
optical network terminal
Summary: Tyco Electronics’ Network Solutions division is a
global supplier of infrastructure components and systems for the
communication service provider, building networks and energy
markets. Products include connectors, above- and below-ground
enclosures, heat shrink sleeves, cable accessories, surge arrestors,
fiber optic cabling, copper cabling and racks for copper and fiber
networks; the fiber optic product line includes a complete range
of products needed to cover the network functions between the
®
July/August 2009 | www.broadbandproper ties.com | BROADBAND PROPERTIES |
75
optical line terminal and the optical network terminal. Tyco also
supplies passive electronic components to communications and
other markets. In 2009, Tyco Electronics joined the Cisco Technology Developer Program as part of the program’s IP Communication/Solution Enablers category. The program unites Cisco
with third-party developers of hardware and software to deliver
tested interoperable solutions to joint customers. In 2008, Tyco
Electronics had sales of $14.8 billion to customers in more than
150 countries. The company has 7,000 engineers and worldwide
manufacturing, sales and customer service capabilities.
UTOPIA
www.utopianet.org
801-613-3800
Key Products: Construction and operation of an open access
fiber-to-the-premises network
Summary: A governmental agency created by 16 Utah cities
with a combined population of over 500,000, Utah Telecommunication Open Infrastructure Agency (“UTOPIA”) builds
and operates an open fiber-to-the-premises network that links
multiple cities and fosters competition among communications
service providers that offer Internet access, television, telephone
and other services. After some initial difficulty with partners
and funding, UTOPIA is emerging as an example of how a
municipal model can bring fiber to rural areas that otherwise
might not see it for years. The last twelve months have been the
beginning of a dramatic turnaround for UTOPIA. UTOPIA
restructured with an entirely new management team; began
focusing more on business customers; brought on five new
service providers and strengthened relationships with others;
added long-haul network capabilities; created a 24/7 Network
Operations Center; increased its subscriber base by over 14 percent; upgraded the network and achieved a five-nines reliability
rating; and expanded service in three of its 16 cities. Current
providers on the UTOPIA network include Fuzecore, Fibernet,
Integra Telecom of Utah, Nuvont, Prime Time Communications, Veracity and XMission. UTOPIA has 30 employees and
generated revenues of $3.2 million in 2008.
Verizon Communications
Verizon Enhanced Communities
www.verizon.com/communities
Key Products: Verizon FiOS telecommunications services,
including TV, Internet and phone, delivered over Verizon’s
all-fiber network
Summary: Verizon Communications, headquartered in New
York City with its operations center in Basking Ridge, New Jersey, markets FiOS services delivered over its fiber-to-the-premises
network. As of March 2009, the FTTP network had passed 12.7
76
million premises with fiber and had 2.8 million FiOS Internet
customers in about 2,000 communities – three-quarters of all
FTTH customers in the US – and more than 2.2 million FiOS
TV customers. Verizon’s FiOS Internet service offers residential
connection speeds up to 50 Mbps downstream and 20 Mbps
upstream throughout the FiOS footprint. FiOS TV service offers over 100 HD channels, a DVR option and 14,000 videoon-demand choices, 70 percent of which are free. In addition to
FiOS, Verizon offers DSL-based high-speed Internet service to
residential and commercial customers. Verizon Enhanced Communities, a business unit of Verizon Communications, signs access, service and marketing agreements for Verizon FiOS with
owners and developers of single-home developments, new apartment and condo and co-op high-rises, privatized military housing, off-campus student housing and small commercial properties to deliver Verizon FiOS. Verizon currently has more than
237,000 employees, and in 2008 it generated operating revenue
of $97.4 billion, up 5.1 percent from 2007.
Vermeer Corporation
www.vermeer.com
641-628-3141; 888-837-6337
Key Products: Horizontal directional drilling equipment,
utility and pedestrian trenchers and plows
Summary: Located in Pella, Iowa, Vermeer Corporation is a
manufacturer of agricultural, construction and environmental
equipment. The company’s history of involvement in the fiber
optics installation industry began in 1991 with its launch of
the NAVIGATOR horizontal directional drill product line.
Navigator HDD units, which combine durable construction
with intelligent technology and high torque, are designed to
install telecommunications lines underground without excavation or trenching, in order to minimize environmental disruption. Vermeer drills have been instrumental in installing fiber
optics around the world. Vermeer has 2,000 employees.
Westek Electronics
www.westek.com
800-526-2673
Key Products: Telecom, medical and OEM “test and
measurement” test cords, patch and hardwire cable
connectivity
Summary: Founded in 1986, Westek manufactures custom
fiber and coax test and patch cabling, cable assemblies, fiber
jumpers, attenuators, adaptors, patches, cleaning kits, multibreakouts, multi-fiber pullers (fiber connector insertion removal tools), web slitter kits and tech support laptop kits as
well as the patented Tel-Line Tester & Tel-Line Tester Pro with
onboard 5-Pin Fuse Testing. Westek uses highly durable, light-
| BROADBAND PROPERTIES | www.broadbandproper ties.com | July/August 2009
weight, state-of-the art materials to manufacture and customize cables and components as well as electronic test kits for
communications systems. Westek can either work from client
conceptual drawings or assist clients in generating designs. Clients include Qwest, Verizon, AT&T and Fortune 1000 OEM
clientele. Registered with Lloyd’s Register Quality Assurance
and based in Santa Cruz, California, Westek has more than
100 employees worldwide. In July 2009 Westek moved into a
new state-of-the-art facility that houses all of its business units
under one roof in Watsonville, California.
emission-, wastewater- and CFC-free. The company, which has
350 employees, posted revenues of $146.1 million in 2008.
Zoomy Communications
www.zoomyco.com
970-928-7722
Key Products: Design, engineering, planning, project
management, construction management, operation and
maintenance of fiber-to-the-home networks
Windstream Communications
www.windstream.com
866-961-9463
Key Products: Voice, data and digital TV services
Summary: Headquartered in Little Rock, Arkansas, Windstream Communications offers telephone, broadband Internet
access and satellite-based digital TV services to customers in
16 states. The company now offers Ethernet Internet access to
small and medium businesses in all 16 states. Windstream is
building fiber-to-the-home networks in new subdivisions within its service areas in at least nine states. The first FTTH network, in Canton, Georgia, was deployed in summer 2006, and
dozens of others were announced subsequently. Windstream
was formed through the spinoff of Alltel’s landline business
and merger with VALOR Telecom. In 2007, the company acquired CT Communications. The merger adds approximately
132,000 access lines and 31,000 broadband customers, nearly
doubling Windstream’s presence in North Carolina. In May
2009, the company announced the acquisition of D&E Communications. The merger will nearly double the company’s
operating presence in Pennsylvania with the addition of approximately 165,000 access lines and about 44,000 high-speed
Internet customers. Windstream has approximately 3 million
access lines, 1 million broadband customers, 7,300 employees,
and about $3.2 billion in annual revenues.
Summary: Zoomy Communications partners with developers
and municipalities to provide communities with an amenity
built on a fiber-to-the-home network and a suite of communications, entertainment and lifestyle services. Zoomy continues
to build out new communities and also provides design, engineering and construction management services for municipalities building FTTH, as well as for network builders in existing
communities. Zoomy is also expanding its services internationally. Zoomy’s telecommunications networks deliver ultrahigh-speed Internet, television (HDTV, IPTV and traditional
CATV), phone service (traditional telephone and VoIP), alarm
monitoring, community Web portals, WiFi hot spots and home
automation services. The company ranks in the top five in the
US in FTTH deployments for new real estate developments,
and is one of a handful of experienced, independent firms capable of providing and delivering this full suite of services and capabilities for homeowners. The Company’s CEO, Diane Kruse,
has served as the Chairman of the FTTH Council.
ZyXEL Communications
www.us.zyxel.com
714-632-0882; 800-255-4101
Zhone Technologies
www.zhone.com
510-777-7000;
877-946-6320
Key Products: Key Products: FTTH central-office and
customer-premises electronics; digital home equipment;
DSL, WiFi and WiMAX electronics; Ethernet switches;
VoIP equipment
Key Products: Telecommunications equipment for
multiservice broadband access, including multiservice
platform integration of FTTx, Ethernet in the First Mile
and wireless access technologies.
Summary: ZyXEL Communications, founded in 1989, is a manufacturer of broadband connectivity and networking products.
ZyXEL’s FTTH offering includes both active Ethernet and GePON solutions. Its broad line of IP networking solutions includes
access multiplexers, customer premises equipment, Internet security, wireless LAN and VoIP equipment. Customers include Embarq, Time Warner, Charter, Earthlink, Verizon, Sprint, Chunghwa Telecom, Deutsche Telekom, France Telecom, Telefónica
Brazil and Telia. ZyXEL is headquartered in Hsinchu, Taiwan,
and maintains offices in Anaheim, California, in Europe and in
Asia. The company has more than 3,200 employees worldwide
and sells its products in more than 150 regional markets in 70
countries. Revenues in 2008 were $479 million.
Summary: Zhone Technologies’ multiservice access solutions
serve more than 700 network operators worldwide. The company offers an integrated portfolio of MSAP, FTTx, EFM and
WiFi access technologies, allowing providers to deliver access
services including residential and business broadband, VoIP
and high-definition IPTV over copper, fiber and wireless.
Zhone is headquartered in California and its MSAP products
are all manufactured in the United States, in a facility that is
July/August 2009 | www.broadbandproper ties.com | BROADBAND PROPERTIES |
77
CABLE OPERATORS
A Network Provider
Calculates the Economic
Benefits of RFOG
A real-world analysis shows that installing RFOG can yield cost savings and
revenue enhancements.
By Tom Anderson ■ Alloptic
I
n 2007 Alloptic introduced the MicroNode RFOG ONU product line,
a portfolio of optical transceivers enabling the evolution of HFC networks
into FTTH topologies. A network operator – which we refer to here as Communications Service Provider Corporation,
or CSP (its corporate policy precludes
the use of its actual name) – recently
used MicroNode products to upgrade
its HFC system. Because economics
played a key role in its decision to use
the Alloptic solution, CSP agreed to assist Alloptic in performing an in-depth
analysis of the measured and anticipated
returns from this deployment.
In this article we detail that analysis and, where possible, quantify the
economic benefits for this customer’s
project. We’ve also included projections
for other deployment scales to give readers an indication of how the economics
might apply to their networks.
We found that, by deploying MicroNode FTTH instead of replacing its
obsolete HFC plant, CSP realized cost
savings in both installation and operations and also enhanced revenues.
CSP’s Decision to Upgrade
CSP is a network operator and services
provider of voice, data, and video to a
region encompassing 400,000 households. Like most network operators,
CSP does not have a homogenous network that supports all services to all
subscribers in all locations. Some sec-
78
“CSP” decided to upgrade the most seriously
deficient portions of its HFC network. It chose
to use fiber to the home rather than HFC both
because of fiber’s unlimited capacity and
because the economics of fiber were better.
tors had coax plant that had been in
place for 25 to 30 years, with limited
channel capacity (22 channels in some
areas), no interactive video capabilities
and high maintenance. CSP was faced
with rebuilding portions of the network
to control costs and fend off competitors
with more complete service offerings. In
early 2007, CSP began researching ways
it could upgrade the most seriously lacking regions of its HFC network.
CSP decided to migrate to a fiberto-the-home (FTTH) topology rather
than rehabilitating the HFC plant. The
decision was largely based on economics, although the virtually unlimited
bandwidth capabilities of an all-fiber
distribution plant were key. After extensive research and modeling, Alloptic’s MicroNode RFOG ONU products
were chosen as the technology for that
migration. CSP considered many economic factors, including installation/deployment costs, operational and maintenance costs and revenue enhancement.
CSP’s migration plan is to restructure the headend-to-node architecture,
deploy fiber from the new node (now
termed V-node by CSP) to the residence, and terminate the fiber at the
home using the Alloptic MicroNode
RFOG ONU. Additionally, they would
add CMTS equipment in the headend
to implement a DOCSIS 2.0 network.
About the Authors
Tom Anderson is director of product marketing and Julian Thomas is product marketing manager for Alloptic, a market leader in RFOG solutions and deployments.
You can reach Tom at 925-245-7606 or tom.anderson@alloptic.com, and Julian at
925-245-7667 or julian.thomas@alloptic.com. To learn more about Alloptic’s RFPON solutions, visit www.alloptic.com.
| BROADBAND PROPERTIES | www.broadbandproper ties.com | July/August 2009
CABLE OPERATORS
Figure 1 illustrates the “before and after” network topologies.
Deployments began in a pilot project of 1,500 homes passed with 780
subscribers, replacing 14 miles of HFC
plant. The project started in mid-2007,
with completion in 2008. The metrics
in this paper were measured and derived
from the available pilot project results.
In some cases actual data were either
proprietary or simply not available. To
give the reader a sense of scale and potential, industry averages and accepted
norms were used and noted as such.
Comparing Installation
Costs: Materials
In modeling the project, CSP found it
was less expensive to build a fiber-to-thehome plant than to build an HFC plant.
First, CSP compared the material
cost for fiber with that of coaxial cable
plant. CSP found it could install fiber
as large as 200-count for the same cost
as two coaxial cables over the same
path. CSP chose to deploy 12-, 24- and
36-count fibers, giving it adequate infrastructure capacity along with spare
fibers for less than the cost of coax.
From a strategic perspective, CSP considered that prices for the raw copper and
aluminum materials used in coaxial cabling and metallic enclosures are spiraling
upward, driving coax plant costs higher.
In fact, aluminum prices have doubled in
the last four to five years while the price
of copper has more than tripled.
By contrast, the price of fiber cabling
has been trending downward and is now
stabilizing. According to KMI Research,
the “average price for fiber optic cable is
not expected to decrease significantly in
the next five years.”i
Costs for active electronics were
compared as well. MicroNode network
material costs were 30 percent to 40
Figure 1. CSP Network with HFC and with MicroNode FTTH.
percent less than HFC network costs up
to take rates of about 50 percent, and
marginally more at higher rates. Even
at higher take rates, when summed with
other material costs as shown below, the
Alloptic MicroNode RFOG ONU solution delivered the lowest total cost.
Comparing Costs: Labor
and Deployment Strategy
Labor was the second major contributor
to the cost of building the new network,
and again, installing fiber cost less than
installing the HFC network. CSP is
somewhat unusual in using permanent
employees rather than contracted workers on its construction crews. That lowers the overall labor rate, and it does so
whether the crews are installing HFC,
fiber or any other technology. CSP concluded that installing fiber actually took
50 percent less time than installing an
HFC network.
The layout and deployment of the
fiber network also contribute to lower
costs. CSP normally builds HFC plant
From a strategic perspective, CSP considered
the fact that copper and aluminum prices are
spiraling upward while fiber optic prices have
been trending downward and are stabilizing.
to within 250 feet of every home passed
to accommodate drop wiring if and
when a subscriber starts service. If a
home is 500 feet from the coax rightof-way, a lateral is built to reach that
location whether or not the homeowner
subscribes to services.
With fiber, the network is built to
within only 1,000 feet (and sometimes
more) of homes passed. Lateral builds
are no longer necessary for nonsubscribing locations. That means less network
is built for nonsubscribers and construction expenses are applied more toward
revenue-generating locations.
Another not-so-apparent cost savings
is in pole attachments. CSP’s plant is
largely aerial. The company pays attachment fees of $5 to $15 per pole, depending on the utility and attachment type.
Strand and drop attachments are priced
differently and require different application paperwork to the pole owner. A
CSP manager explained attachment advantages this way:
“…[With HFC] in a location where
[CSP] had to build a lateral to feed a
house that sits 500 feet off the road, I
may have replaced two poles because
there wasn’t enough room to attach
strand and drop coax. With a fiber drop,
I drive a J-lag in and I can attach it within
4 or 6 inches of the other utilities on the
pole. I don’t run that drop until that guy
wants to be a customer and then I send
July/August 2009 | www.broadbandproper ties.com | BROADBAND PROPERTIES |
79
CABLE OPERATORS
in a drop attachment application to the
utility, which is less stringent than a
strand attachment agreement. Then I’ve
got revenue coming in to pay for that
lease or that space on that pole.”
Overall Installation
Cost Comparison
Data from the pilot project is not sufficient to quantify each of the above installation costs independently. However,
by using the available CSP data together
with information from industry studies,
we can arrive at a macro view of deployment costs.
CSP estimates that its costs for installing this pilot project of 780 subscribers are:
Materials Labor Total $157,861
$150,318
$308,179
The average cost is $205 per home
passed, or $395 per subscriber.
This price is much lower than the
$1,000+ per subscriber often cited for
FTTP/FTTH deployments. That’s because MicroNode FTTH technology is
a significant departure from those systems, with large cost differentials. For
instance, the MicroNode topology requires no optical line terminal, and the
HFC headend equipment remains intact, dramatically reducing deployment
costs compared with traditional PON.
A study of HFC costs by John
Browse, presented at an ITU-T workshopii, estimates the costs of HFC deployments as:
Materials Labor Total $13,110 per mile
$16,518 per mile
$29,628 per mile
With approximately 14 miles of network in the project, had HFC been used
the installation costs would have been:
Materials Labor Total $183,540
$231,252
$414,792
HFC installation costs would have
amounted to $277 per home passed, or
$532 per subscriber.
CSP saved $72 per home passed with
the MicroNode solution, or 26 percent
80
Opex savings include reductions in
routine Cumulative Leak Index and sweep
maintenance testing, in dispatching
emergency powering equipment, in power
consumption generally, and in plant
maintenance costs.
of what it would have spent for an HFC
network of the same size.
Comparing Operations
and Maintenance Costs
In addition to lower installation costs,
CSP is also realizing operations and
maintenance cost savings. Savings have
been identified in four major areas: reduced routine Cumulative Leak Index
(CLI) and sweep maintenance tests;
reduced need for emergency powering
equipment and dispatch; lower power
consumption; and reduced plant maintenance costs.
CLI and sweep test reduction. By
installing a passive optical fiber-to-thehome network, CSP has removed almost
all of two sources of routine maintenance – CLI tests and amplifier sweeps.
Those maintenance activities required
two days per quarter of dedicated engineering time to test the 14 miles of HFC
plant in the pilot project area. After the
upgrade with MicroNode FTTH, 98
percent of the CLI and sweep testing
is eliminated. All that is left is V-node
testing. The result is a savings of $2,249
per year in labor costs. Not quantified
are the savings in CLI and sweep test
equipment, truck/travel expenses, and
the opportunity costs of technical personnel performing routine maintenance
instead of value-added activities.
While $2,249 per year may not seem
significant, the savings is much greater
when applied across CSP’s entire service
area. Using the project area as a basis,
density is 107 homes passed per plant
mile. CSP is spending $161 per mile per
year for CLI and sweep tests. Thus for
400,000 homes passed, the annual tab
for CLI and sweep testing is $594,000 –
most of which can be eliminated with a
MicroNode-based fiber network.
Note that average density in the US
is closer to 50 homes per mile of plant,
driving potential savings per home
passed even higher in lower-density applications.
Emergency power savings. CSP
maintains emergency generators for dispatch to any node undergoing a power
outage. Experience has shown that
between three and five generators are
needed per 100 nodes. By implementing
an all-fiber, all-passive plant, CSP has
eliminated the need for the emergency
generators used with its HFC network
except for V-nodes. For the project area,
two generators were kept available; only
one is required for V-nodes with the
MicroNode FTTH architecture. Across
CSP’s entire network, between 30 and 50
generators would no longer be needed.
At an average cost of $2,000 per generator, between $60,000 and $100,000
in capital can be recovered in generators
alone. More is available from the trucks
and other equipment dedicated to power
outage dispatches.
Emergency generator dispatches
are also virtually eliminated by CSP’s
change to a PON architecture. Because
CSP had standby battery backup of two
to four hours at each node and it takes
60 to 90 minutes to deploy a generator,
the company would immediately dispatch an emergency generator any time
there was a power outage alarm from a
node, so power generation could begin
before the batteries were depleted. In
most cases AC power was restored to the
node before the generator was put on
line, creating expense for the needless
dispatch and frustration for CSP.
| BROADBAND PROPERTIES | www.broadbandproper ties.com | July/August 2009
CABLE OPERATORS
After deploying MicroNode FTTH,
CSP had much less need for generators
because of node elimination. Also, CSP
re-engineered standby battery power to
support 6 to 8 hours of service from the
V-node, eliminating emergency generator dispatches except during outages
lasting for sustained periods. The additional battery time became feasible because there were so many fewer nodes to
power and because the V-node’s power
requirements are so low.
The savings from fewer generator
dispatches may appear to be modest –
$11,560 – because of the small size of
the pilot project. However, if it were
applied across CSP’s entire network it
would certainly be significant. CSP estimates that it has three active emergency
generator dispatches at any time. Using
an hourly rate of $31.75 per technician
and $712 per month per truck, CSP was
spending $620,000 per year to support
emergency generator deployments. Implementing the Alloptic MicroNode solution and longer battery capacity across
the network will save at least 95 percent
of that cost.
One other cost associated with emergency power bears examination – the
cost of battery backup. CSP uses four or
eight batteries in each string at an average cost of $100 per battery. The batteries are changed every three years, with
annual maintenance and testing. CSP
spends four hours to maintain and replace the string over the three-year battery life. Using those parameters, the
annual expense for battery maintenance
in the project area is $702; for CSP’s full
network, the expense is $162,000. As
noted above, at least 95 percent of that
expense can be eliminated with Alloptic’s MicroNode solution.
Other costs associated with emergency power have not been included.
For example, the costs of dealing with
batteries as hazardous materials are not
considered, although expenses for storage, regulatory compliance, and legal
risks are very real and significant.
Lower power consumption. By deploying the MicroNode RFOG FTTH
solution, CSP is enjoying an overall reduction in AC power expenses. It has
eliminated the outside plant powering
needs except for V-nodes, while the MicroNode transceivers are powered from
homeowners’ AC mains. (The reduction
in overall power consumption is shown
in the digital bonus pages.)
Prior to the MicroNode FTTH
deployment, each of CSP’s nodes consumes 1.35 kilowatt hours per year. At
the average U.S. commercial rateiii of
$0.0867 per kilowatt hour, its annual
expense to power nodes in the project area was $4,101. After deployment
CSP has reduced power consumption
by 96 percent to only $171, as a result
of fewer nodes and less power used per
node. (This translates to a monthly cost
of $14.25, which is below minimum
monthly billing for some utility companies. As a result, higher charges may apply.) The potential savings for the entire
network is $904,000 per year.
Reduced plant maintenance costs.
Clearly, fiber plant is less expensive to
maintain than copper/coax plant. In the
Browse study cited above, HFC maintenance costs were found to be $1,103
per mile. Fiber maintenance is generally
accepted to be on the order of 10 percent that of copper/coax. Other studies
note plant maintenance rates dropping
by over 80 percent with PON. CSP is
experiencing similar improvements, although its fiber deployments have not
been operational long enough for a conclusive quantification.
Using the more conservative 80 per-
cent estimate, which is a higher cost than
CSP has experienced so far, maintenance
costs for the FTTH network total $221
per mile. For the pilot project area, that
is an annual expense of $3,094 compared
with HFC maintenance of $15,442 – a
savings of over $12,000 per year. For
CSP’s entire network, the annual savings
would be $3.3 million ($4.1 million for
HFC versus $800,000 for FTTH).
Revenue Enhancement
CSP’s ability to offer more extensive
services is another significant economic
benefit of the MicroNode RFOG network. The HFC system, which was
more than 25 years old, supported only
22 video channels with no return path
for VoD (video on demand) or other interactive video services, no data services
and no voice services.
The suite of services enabled after
installing the Alloptic MicroNode RF
PON and upgrading headend equipment is rapidly driving increases in
revenue per household. RF bandwidth
has been extended to 1.1 GHz, which
makes available CSP’s entire lineup of
245 channels, including 21 HD channels. VoD is also enabled, with free, payper-view, and subscription options.
Residential data services are now
available to subscribers in the pilot project area. CSP currently offers a single
tier of Internet access up to 4.4 Mbps via
DOCSIS 2.0 technology. With a future
Figure 2: Average revenue per user before and after the upgrade.
July/August 2009 | www.broadbandproper ties.com | BROADBAND PROPERTIES |
81
CABLE OPERATORS
Figure 3: Project area economics.
upgrade to DOCSIS 3.0, multiple levels
of access are planned.
Voice services are now available to
subscribers in the pilot project area. For
a single monthly fee, subscribers have
unlimited local and long distance calling via VoIP (voice-over-IP) technology.
82
It is still very early in the deployment
cycle to estimate steady-state take rates
for the new services. For the purposes
of this analysis, take rates are assumed
constant at 52 percent, which was the
rate for basic service that existed before the upgrade. The national average
is 58.8 percentiv, so using 52 percent is
conservative with a reasonable expectation of marginal increases.
CSP’s early service mix results are
trending toward those reported elsewhere in the industry v. Following that
course, CSP’s revenue per subscriber is
expected to increase from $41 to $96
per subscriber as shown in Figure 2.
For the pilot project area with 1,500
homes passed, the increase in average
revenue per user (ARPU) adds $514,800
in annual revenue.
Other revenue is enabled as well. First,
CSP offers business services in other regions, and plans to extend those services
to the pilot project area in the near future. CSP’s business services include:
• Internet access, tiered up to 10 Mbps
• WiFi hotspot hosting with free and
billable access options
• Web site hosting
• Business telephony
• Music and television services
• Commercial security monitoring.
| BROADBAND PROPERTIES | www.broadbandproper ties.com | July/August 2009
CABLE OPERATORS
Figure 4: Economic benefits can be substantial across the entire service area.
These services have been major revenue sources in other CSP regions, and
are expected to contribute significantly
in the pilot project area as well. Because
of differences in business density it is
not practical to project revenue based on
other regions, and data is not yet available to quantify business revenue potential in the pilot project area.
Intangible Economic Benefits
CSP realized two additional intangible
benefits with the Alloptic MicroNode
RFOG FTTH solution. First is that it
now has an all-fiber access network in
place. Whatever future services are offered, and whatever their bandwidth requirements, CSP has the outside plant
necessary to support those services. Perhaps the electronics on either end of the
network will change, perhaps not. In
either event the company has made the
investment necessary for a fiber plant
that will deliver services for the life of
the fiber – 20, 30, 40 years or more.
The second benefit is closely related
and more near-term. CSP can now adapt
the MicroNode FTTH network with a
PON overlay system such as Alloptic’s
Gigabit PON. In this hybrid RF PON
architecture, both RF FTTH and Ethernet FTTH operate concurrently on
the same network without any changes
to outside plant architectures or topology. By implementing this overlay, CSP
can offer enterprise-class rich Ethernet
services at gigabit rates for business sub-
might work in larger deployments and
across all of CSP’s serving area, Figure 4
includes projections for 10,000, 50,000,
and 400,000 homes passed. Costs are
calculated per mile; the revenue increase
basis is per user.
Of course, results vary for every application. For instance, installation costs
are very different for aerial versus buried
cable. Also, it is unlikely that the revenue
gains in this pilot area would be equally
realized across a larger network because
most network operators already offer services beyond basic cable video. In many
regards the CSP pilot area is an ideal business case, with its aging plant and limited
services. Nevertheless, this case offers a
view of the many real-world economic
benefits CSP is experiencing along with
insight into the benefits other network
operators can achieve with the Alloptic
MicroNode FTTH solution. BBP
The CSP pilot area is an ideal business case,
with its aging plant and limited services.
Nevertheless, this case offers a view of the
many real-world economic benefits the
company is experiencing, along with
insights into the benefits other network
operators can achieve..
scribers, gain bandwidth for IPTV expansion, deploy VoIP from the ONT
(without in-home gateways), or backhaul TDM wireless traffic.
Summary and Projections
CSP is realizing significant cost savings
and revenue enhancement by deploying
the MicroNode FTTH solution as a replacement for an outdated HFC system.
Figure 3 summarizes the economics for
the project area.
To illustrate how those benefits
Endnotes
i
KMI Research, Worldwide Markets for Fiberoptics in Broadband Access Networks,
2006, p.57
ii John Browse, Fiber Access Network – A
Cable Operator’s Perspective, presented at
ITU-T All Star Network Access Workshop,
Geneva 2–4 June 2004
iii US Energy Information Agency, http://www.
eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/epa/epat7p4.html
iv National Cable & Telecommunications Association, June 2007 http://www.ncta.com/
ContentView.aspx?contentId=54
v Merrill Lynch, Media and Entertainment
Conference, Sept. 17, 2007
How “green” is the RFOG technology? Find out in our digital
bonus pages at www.bbpmag.com/bbponline.php
84
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Technology
i3 Group Brings Fiber
Through the Sewers
An innovation in fiber optic deployment has taken the UK by storm. Now this
through-the-sewer-solution is coming to America.
By Elfed Thomas ■ i3 Group
W
orld leaders, including President Obama, have cited superfast broadband as key to
economic recovery. But though the need
for universal broadband access is widely
accepted, the debate still rages about
how to – or more importantly, who will
– install the necessary infrastructure.
Following the recent publication of
the British government’s long-awaited
Digital Britain report, which investigated the current and future communications needs of the nation, Britain is
finally on its way to a fiber revolution.
The UK now has a broadband strategy
and a framework for the installation of
a national fiber optic network. The report has cemented the idea of fiber as
the fourth utility, after water, electricity
and gas, to which everyone has the right
of access. Universal broadband access is
seen as vital not only for economic recovery but also to ensure that a digital
divide is not created between the broadband haves and have-nots.
But while the British government
has capped its ambitions at a universal
2 Mbps fiber-to-the-cabinet (FTTC)
network by 2012, one infrastructure
provider – i3 Group – is setting the
bar at 100 Mbps true fiber to the home
(FTTH), enabling access to all the entertainment, health care, security and
public services already available and the
new technologies expected to come online in the foreseeable future. By using
existing ducts such as the sewer network,
a ready-made conduit within a specific
geographical area, i3 has brought down
the cost of deployment by as much as 90
86
“I thought there must be an alternative to the
disruptive and frankly archaic way in which we
dig the roads to lay cables. An idea began to
form about how we could adopt a simpler and
lower-cost approach using existing ducts.”
percent. Universities, hospitals and municipal authorities in the UK have already benefited from this reliable, costeffective method, and now city residents
are also beginning to benefit.
With its first connections already in
place, i3 Group has started to turn its vision into a reality and now plans to bring
its unique low-cost infrastructure models
and technology to the United States.
A Ready-Made Solution
i3 Group and its technology stem from
an insight I had some years ago, while I
was working as an engineer. Recognizing the huge capital outlay necessary to
dig up miles of highways to deploy fiber,
I began to investigate the possibility of
laying cables along sewer pipes, which
already run the length and breadth of
streets across most of the developed
world, and thereby reducing the need
for expensive road digging.
I thought there must be an alternative to the disruptive and frankly archaic way in which we dig the roads to
lay communications cables. An idea began to form about how we could adopt
a simpler and lower-cost approach using
existing ducts. I had difficulty early on
in convincing people of the validity of
the idea, mainly because it had been
tried and failed in the past. People
couldn’t believe such a simple approach
didn’t have any pitfalls, and questioned
whether it could be commercially viable
– they always think there’s a catch. But
there isn’t.
The patented model I developed –
the FS System – does not interfere with
the primary purpose of the duct, and the
About the Author
Elfed Thomas is CEO of i3 Group, based in Haydock, in North West England. An
engineer by training, he is the brains behind i3 Group’s unique deployment method,
the patented FS System, which enables cost-effective installation of fiber optic broadband. He can be reached at info@h2o-networks.uk.net. For further information,
please visit: www.i3-Group.co.uk.
| BROADBAND PROPERTIES | www.broadbandproper ties.com | July/August 2009
Technology
deployment method we use ensures that
it is commercially viable, unlike earlier
methods. Prior to installation i3 Group
works closely with water companies to
verify that the duct is appropriate. We
have the capacity not only to survey
the ducts but also to repair any damage
we might find in order to to ensure the
longevity of the network. Today, with
customers including local councils, universities, hospitals and private enterprise
already seeing the benefits, we have the
proof that the method works.
What started as a problem-solving
exercise in a small Welsh town in 2002
has grown into an international company with partnerships around the
world. Using the i3 Group’s patented FS
System, Group divisions H2O Networks
and Fibrecity are deploying fiber optic
cable through ready-made ducts, including the sewer and clean water systems,
and setting up IT and telecom networks
with virtually unlimited bandwidth.
Using these ready-made ducts reduces
the pressure on traditional pathways,
which are increasingly congested with
cables of all types, and offers a fast and
cost-effective way to lay fiber optic cable
without the high price and disruption
caused by traditional cabling methods.
And with the cost of laying ducts in any
main street running at around $200 per
meter, the savings are obvious.
Evolution of the Solution
Originally i3 Group, under the H2O
Networks division, simply offered pointto-point fiber solutions for large-scale,
multisite businesses and organizations.
Universities, hospitals and municipal
authorities across the UK benefited
from the superfast connectivity, seeing
improved download and upload speeds,
with associated business benefits. But
with the explosion of consumer demand for high-speed connectivity and
the huge potential for future services
to be delivered via this platform, the
firm developed a program – Fibrecity
­– for providing true fiber to the home
in order to ensure the democratization
of the digital revolution. A third model,
Fibrezone, involves deploying a dark fiber optic cable ring around a business
sector, campus, town or city to which
Fiber optic cable in the sewer: the inside view.
municipal authority), which was one of
the first to embrace fiber optic connectivity. Bournemouth Borough Council
required a robust and secure communications infrastructure to link the Town
Hall and surrounding offices, home to
5,000 staff, with the Bournemouth International Center (BIC), a major entertainment venue. Whenever the BIC
plays host to large events such as political party conferences, pop concerts or
comedy shows, there are spikes in demand for high-speed communications
between the two sites. The H2O Networks point-to-point solution answered
the Council’s need for connectivity.
Key to the implementation of the
point-to-point solution in Bournemouth
was the speed with which the network
could be installed. This tourist town
could not afford high levels of disruption, the traffic congestion and the resulting impact on local business and
organizations such as local authorities,
hospitals, schools and local businesses
can connect.
Under the Fibrecity banner, whole
towns and cities are being hooked up to
fiber optic cables. Bournemouth, in Dorset, is the UK’s first Fibrecity. Residents of
Bournemouth, one of southern England’s
premier coastal towns, will be among the
first to benefit from true FTTH connectivity. Residents have been invited to sign
up to have their
homes connected
for free as part of
the Fibrecity Opt
In campaign. Engineers are moving into areas of
Bournemouth on
a rolling basis,
deploying cables
along
major
routeways before
splitting off the
fiber and installing it to properties whose owners
have opted in. The
network will then
be leased by service providers that
will deliver service
bundles directly
to the consumer.
i3 Group developed the relationships critical
to Fibrecity following its successful partnership
with the town’s
forward-thinking
local
council
Fibrecity engineers laying fiber cable in Bournemouth, England.
(equivalent to the
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87
Technology
“Distance from campus is now irrelevant. We
can also rely on this communications network
to support the expected developments in
Web-based learning in the future...and remain
ahead of the game academically.”
tourism that a traditional road dig
would cause. In order to reduce the effect on the town’s 164,000 residents and
its visiting population, Bournemouth
chose the H2O Networks solution.
The Council’s new communications
network was operational in just over a
week with no need for the complex negotiations that come with getting permission to dig up roads and pavements. The
traditional method of deploying cable
would have taken up to six months. This
rapid deployment enabled the council
to save taxpayers’ money while staying
ahead of the game in meeting its 21stcentury communications needs.
Bob Rhodes, IT project manager at
Bournemouth Borough Council, says:
“In partnership with H2O Networks
we are making a tremendous cost saving, meaning that we can put Council
taxpayers’ money to better use. Using
the sewer network is also a more environmentally friendly way to lay the fiber
optic cable, and it makes sense to utilize
the existing sewer network.
“Bournemouth is a town with a lot
of tourism and architectural heritage, so
it’s great that we are using the local sewer
network to the benefit of local industry
and the environment. The H2O method
has actually prevented any damage to either. The fact that it only took one week
to implement is incredible. Compare
this to the traditional method of digging up the roads to lay the cable, which
would have taken months, and the
value of H2O Networks’ method speaks
for itself.”
Bridging the Digital Divide
Speed of deployment and reduced disruption were also important to the University of Bath, which was searching
for a future-proof solution to provide
88
next-generation connectivity to students
both on and off campus. Robust, highspeed network capability is vital for the
smooth running of university services
and for effective teaching and learning
for both students and staff. Because IT
is an important tool for research and
communication, the networks must not
only meet current demands, but also be
able to respond to future developments
in the way lectures, tutorials and assignments are delivered.
The University of Bath is home
to 13,000 students and more than
2,600 staff members on the edge of a
UNESCO World Heritage city. As demand for student accommodation has
grown, the university has sought to provide off-campus residence halls. However, students who chose to live off campus were immediately disadvantaged by
having to rely on the restrictive speeds of
traditional copper wire networks while
those on campus had access to good levels of service in computer suites, libraries
and dorm rooms.
Network manager Kris Shah was
determined not to allow the 1,100 offcampus students to suffer from the “digital divide” with limited access to nextgeneration e-learning strategies, IPTV,
telephony and fast broadband. He says,
“We couldn’t sustain anything off-campus other than small bandwidth. Simply
looking up the content of a Web page
could take a long time off campus, so
we could never have considered delivering next-generation TV, telephony and
learning tools. This very limited service
created a digital divide between students
depending on where they chose to live.
“This network has enabled us to offer
the students living off campus exactly the
same level of service as those on campus.
They can access a variety of research resources, 40+ TV and radio channels, use
Internet telephony (voice over IP) services and robust superfast Internet from
their bedroom. Thanks to this solution
from H2O Networks, distance from
campus is now irrelevant. We can also
rely on this communications network to
support the expected developments in
Web-based learning in the future. I feel
reassured that the network is resilient
enough to cope with advancements in
e-learning strategies, which will enable
The University of Bath to remain ahead
of the game academically.”
But with an economy built on tourism and its rich heritage, nobody was
keen to see a mass road-digging program.
Shah adds: “The innovative deployment
method was attractive because it is the
green option. Bath is a World Heritage
city, and considering that status, I was
concerned about the prospect of a largescale road dig and the length of time it
would take to install. H2O Networks’
FS System meant disruption was kept to
a minimum.
“Financially, the H2O Networks
business model appealed to me as we
face no recurrent costs and our fiber
rental from the firm requires no maintenance. Compared to the traditional
method, we have already seen payback
of the capital outlay in just two years.”
The Benefit of
Predictable Costs
In the health care industry, data communication is such a critical component
that a high-speed, robust and resilient
network is vital for the transfer of patient records, clinical data and appointments between departments and hospital sites. For Newcastle upon Tyne
Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust the
ability to predict future network costs
proved attractive as it embarked on the
largest health care modernization program in its history.
Newcastle’s £304 million (about $500
million) project to transform the health
care provision in the region required a
communications infrastructure that was
cheaper than the existing network provider, and that could also accommodate
its needs for the future. Bob Beckwith,
| BROADBAND PROPERTIES | www.broadbandproper ties.com | July/August 2009
Technology
BUSINESS PARK
LOCAL AUTHORITY
FINANCIAL INSTITUTION
GOVERNMENT BUILDING
LONG DISTANCE FIBRE
YOUR BUSINESS
UNIVERSITY
HOSPITAL
YOUR BUSINESS
DATA CENTRE
Diagram of the Fibrezone solution.
data and telecommunications network
manager, explains, “Our hospitals are
reliant on our e-records system to cope
with more than a million patients every
year. We have used a fiber optic network
for a number of years but our old system
was leased and the cost was linked to the
speed of the traffic over the network. So,
just like with home broadband, you pay
more to utilize the faster speeds.
“The cost had become too high for
the speed that we need now, let alone
in the future. With the H2O fiber optic
network, we have control. It’s up to us
to determine the speed we want by simply upgrading our network kit, and by
signing up to a 15-year contract we can
predict what future costs will be.”
The Rural Issue
With a full range of fiber solutions – including the point-to-point, Fibrezone
and Fibrecity models – i3 Group has developed a flexible business model suited
not only to its customers, but also to its
partners in the UK and overseas. Each
of the company’s service divisions – Fibrecity Holdings, H2O Networks, Fibrezone and H2O International – is able to
tailor packages for individual customers,
be they businesses, universities or even
whole towns and cities, which allows the
technology to be exported wholesale under license.
But what about the United States?
Could the model be reproduced here and
would it answer today’s biggest question,
how to deliver rural connectivity?
In the US, there has been a great
deal of discussion about the provision
of broadband to rural areas and the potential for remote towns to link to large-
scale “backbone” trunk lines. Providing
fast and affordable broadband requires
the replacement of antiquated copper
networks, but rural geography and negotiations over road digging often prove
to be stumbling blocks, making the cost
of traditional deployment prohibitive
for many rural areas.
i3’s Fibrezone solution could provide
an answer. Installing a dark fiber ring
around a town or even a business district
that links to the Internet backbone allows customers to connect fairly inexpensively, paying only for a relatively short
link – and, in addition, the FS System
cuts installation costs of the fiber ring by
as much as 90 per cent compared with
traditional deployment methods. Even
areas without a municipal water supply
can be served by fiber optic connectivity
if they have some form of ready-made
ducts, like storm drains.
Alternatively, the town- and citywide Fibrecity model removes the cost
entirely from the homeowner and puts
it with the Internet service provider, giving the resident of a one-bedroom apartment the same opportunity to connect
to the Internet as the owner of a 10-bedroom mansion.
Gill Varle, director for H2O International, has recently overseen negotiations with partners in Australia, South
Africa and Abu Dhabi, all of whom have
bought into the Group’s models. She
says the US has great potential for similar collaboration and recently met with
potential partners at the International
Telecoms Week summit in Washington
with a view to signing up an exclusive
partner who would take over the US license and become H2O USA. She be-
lieves the Fibrecity and Fibrezone models are the perfect solution not only for
towns, cities and business districts, but
also for the rural communities that fear
missing out as the battle begins to tie up
the high-value city centers.
“There’s a variety of different models
that could be used to take fiber outside
of the major towns and cities. Fibrecities
may be the answer for towns with a
larger population density, while a Fibrezone could enable more sparsely populated communities to access next-generation services. With the technology we
have at our disposal, the possibilities are
endless,” she says.
The importance of network infrastructure has been likened to the electrical wiring and sewage system programs of yesteryear. Fiber as a “utility”
is a concept Varle wholeheartedly agrees
with. She says, “Fiber access will soon be
as fundamental to a home as any other
utility. Increasing use of, and reliance
on, computers and Web-based services
demands an infrastructure that is up
to 21st century standards, and futureproofed beyond even that.
“In order to avoid a digital divide between those for whom data transfer is a
simple process and others who find they
are excluded because they don’t have the
right tools at their disposal, there must
be a mechanism for providing universal
fiber access. i3 Group has developed the
systems and expertise to roll out townand citywide fiber optic networks while
our innovative deployment method
drives down both costs and time, making it an attractive proposition to both
end users and investors.” BBP
July/August 2009 | www.broadbandproper ties.com | BROADBAND PROPERTIES |
89
Technology
The Desktop ONT Arrives
The multifamily property is the new FTTH frontier – and next-generation optical network terminals make deploying fiber to MDUs much more practical.
By Bhavani Rao ■ Alcatel-Lucent
D
eploying fiber cost effectively to
multiple dwelling units (MDUs)
has always presented a challenge
due to the enormous variations in MDU
construction and number of living units.
The challenge is even greater today, with
new MDU construction at a record low
and most fiber deployments involving
retrofits of existing buildings that were
never designed for fiber connectivity.
But the MDU market also presents
a tremendous opportunity. More than
a quarter of the US population lives in
apartments and condominiums, and
renters in MDUs are predominantly
young (38 percent of them are under 35,
according to the US Census Bureau) –
meaning they are in the demographic
most likely to buy IPTV, video on demand or high-speed Internet. These are
the residents service providers need to
build brand awareness and loyalty. Most
MDUs are still untouched by fiber connectivity – which makes MDUs the new
FTTH frontier.
Service providers have tried to answer the technical challenge by placing
conventional outdoor optical network
terminals (ONTs) inside apartments, or
by deploying MDU ONTs in the basement and outdoor cabinets. (The optical network terminal is the device at the
customer premises that translates the
optical signal back to an electrical signal that can travel over copper.) These
approaches have presented problems
for MDU residents, property managers and service providers. Now a major
paradigm shift is occurring in North
America: Service providers are eyeing
desktop ONTs as the solution that will
help them address the MDU market.
MDUs: The New FTTH Frontier
Network engineers and installers have
developed proven practices for archi-
90
The desktop ONT allows service providers
to deliver true fiber to the home in an MDU
without having to install an industrial-looking,
temperature-hardened unit inside the home.
tecting FTTH networks and connecting single-family homes to the network.
Connecting multiple dwelling units or
multifamily housing units, however, is
not quite as straightforward.
MDUs vary widely in terms of number of living units, and building construction materials may be brick, masonry or
wood. All of these factors affect how easily the building can be cabled. Unlike
single-family homes, MDUs have tight
space constraints, leaving little room for
equipment or cable routing.
MDUs can be connected to the fiber
network in different ways. Two of the
most common connection devices are:
• MDU ONTs, which are large ONTs
with VDSL2 or gigabit Ethernet
drops to each living unit. Each drop
is connected to a modem and/or
home electronics to deliver tripleplay services.
• Single-family ONTs, which were
designed to be placed on the outside
of a single-family home but which in
MDUs are generally placed inside
the living unit.
The MDU ONT Approach
The MDU ONTs used by service providers typically have preconfigured drops:
one ‘hot’ RF port, 24 POTS lines and
either 12 gigabit Ethernet or 12 VDSL2
interfaces.
The VDSL2 model is commonly
used to retrofit existing buildings, provided that the twisted-pair copper is of
good quality. The service provider connects the POTS and VDSL2 ports to
the building’s twisted pair and installs
a VDLS2 modem or residential gateway
at the subscriber premises along with
DSL filters inside the living unit.
New buildings, or buildings without
good copper plant, are usually serviced
with the gigabit Ethernet MDU ONT.
In this case, Cat 5 cable is pulled to each
living unit – an easy process before the
walls are completed, but rather challenging when retrofitting an older building.
The Cat 5 drops are fed into each living
unit and connected to a home router or
residential gateway.
With the MDU ONT, the service
provider benefits by reusing all or some
About the Author
Bhavani Rao is a senior product marketing manager at Alcatel-Lucent, where he
is responsible for marketing FTTH products and solutions. He has held operations,
manufacturing and marketing roles in the telecommunications and software industries. You can reach him at Bhavani.Rao@alcatel-lucent.com.
| BROADBAND PROPERTIES | www.broadbandproper ties.com | July/August 2009
Technology
• The MDU ONT represents a single point of failure. Up to
12 units can be out of service due to an ONT failure.
• The throughput of VDSL2 is sufficient for most users today, but it may not be sufficient in the future. Providers
cannot increase bandwidth to over 100 Mbps for residents
connected via VDSL2 from an MDU ONT.
The Single-Family ONT Approach
Some operators have chosen to pull fiber to all living units and
use outdoor single-family ONTs. In this scenario, the ONT
is typically placed inside a closet or in the laundry room and
connected to power, coax and home wiring. Using the same
ONT model for all residential subscribers greatly simplifies engineering, training, equipment stocking and trouble ticket issues. Additionally, because all customers use the same outdoor
ONT, the same service offerings are universally available.
However, this approach also does not come without drawbacks:
Figure 1: The MDU ONT is in the cabinet at top right, with power supply
in top left and cross-connect cabinet at bottom.
of the existing copper cables. Multiple MDU ONTs can be
rack-mounted, saving time and dramatically expediting service rollout. A 300-unit building can be equipped with just
26 MDU ONTs (each ONT typically serves 12 living units).
This method is very cost effective when all subscribers take
service, as a large number of customers can be served with
minimal equipment. Also, when the MDU ONT is installed
in the basement or in an exterior cabinet (as in Figure 1), it is
relatively easy for the craftsperson to gain access to electronics
or wiring for maintenance needs. Centralizing the equipment
makes battery and add/drop changes simpler as well.
Despite its advantages, the MDU ONT also has some pitfalls:
• In many instances, only 50 percent of the subscribers will
subscribe to data and/or video services, which sharply increases the true cost per subscriber. Ports are stranded due
to lack of subscriber demand and the ONT is not fully utilized.
• The service provider has to negotiate with the MDU owner
for space to mount the electronics. At a minimum, the
MDU owner has to provide 4.5 square feet to service 12
living units, but this doesn’t include the space for the power
supply and cross connect. In many buildings, the power
receptacles are not adjacent to the building coax and telephone wiring, often necessitating hiring an electrician to
assist with the install. The MDU owner may require the
service provider to pay the monthly electric charges.
• Homeowners may not want to give up the 2 square feet
required to mount the electronics inside their living units.
• As a rugged unit designed to withstand wind-driven rain
and sand, the outdoor ONT is not very appealing to the
eye. Service providers frequently encounter subscribers objecting to the industrial design.
• Built with components designed to withstand freezing temperatures and a solar load, the hardened ONT is a relatively
expensive option in an indoor environment.
• When the ONT is installed inside a closet, it is difficult to
connect to power receptacles or any of the required home
wiring.
Desktop ONTs to the Rescue
Clearly there is a both a need and demand for fiber access to the
MDU. In response to this need, the industry has now started
to deploy next-generation desktop ONTs that blend into every
living unit. Smaller than a cable modem, these ONTs represent
the best in optical networking technology (Figure 2).
Vendors such as Alcatel-Lucent are offering sleek, compact
desktop ONTs that complement today’s living spaces. These
next-generation ONTs use up to 30 percent less power than
Figure 2: Next-generation desktop ONT.
July/August 2009 | www.broadbandproper ties.com | BROADBAND PROPERTIES |
91
Technology
previous ONTs and can be paired with a power supply and
backup battery to provide lifeline services. Mounted on a wall
or placed on a desktop, these ONTs have all the familiar interfaces: POTS, gigabit Ethernet and RF. Future ONTs will
combine residential gateway features reducing the equipment
needed and costs.
Indoor ONTs have long been the norm in Europe and
Asia, where MDUs account for a higher percentage of living
units. Indeed, Alcatel-Lucent has supplied or will be supplying
France Telecom, Etisalat and Portugal Telecom with indoor
ONTs. This momentum has finally reached North America,
with Verizon announcing that it will be using a desktop indoor
ONT as part of its rollout. Service providers throughout North
America are finally awakening to the realization that the desktop ONT may be the best way to serve MDUs.
One reason the indoor ONT is gaining momentum is that
advancements in optical fiber have made it practical to pull
fiber into the living unit. New bend-insensitive drop cables can
be pulled through wall studs, stapled to wood and otherwise
handled like regular copper wires. Adding plug-and-play connectors to these cables can dramatically speed up the wiring
process and minimize disruption to MDU residents.
Advantages for Service Providers
Despite recent advances in cabling technology, deploying desktop ONTs is more expensive than using an MDU ONT. This
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92
is because the cost of pulling fiber to individual living units is
more expensive than reusing existing copper cable. Given the
higher cost, why are providers turning to the desktop ONT?
First, the ONT is placed in the home only when the subscriber takes service. This reduces the investment for the service
provider by enabling a ‘pay as you grow’ model, and solves the
problem of stranded ports on the MDU ONT.
Second and more important, the service provider is literally
delivering fiber to the home. This is more than just a marketing
slogan – all subscribers can receive the full bandwidth enabled
by fiber.
The desktop ONT also offers service providers advantages
that outdoor single-family ONTs cannot match:
First, because the device is visually appealing and compact
(some models are smaller than DSL modems), service providers
can rest assured they will not encounter pushback from MDU
residents or owners.
Second, although they have more functionality than previous GPON ONTs, next-generation ONTs use less power. Alcatel-Lucent estimates that subscribers could see a 30 percent
power reduction compared with outdoor ONTs1.
Also, the ambient temperature in a home is a friendly environment for electronics. Next-gen ONTs have greater reliability and cost less because they don’t have to use expensive
hardened components.
Advantages for Property Owners
For the property owner, bringing fiber to each living unit represents the best future-proof technology for delivering broadband services that can enhance property values. This is clearly
an advantage for property owners faced with declining rents.
In the past, indoor ONTs raised safety concerns due to the
potential of exposure to the laser. However, these next-generation ONTs are designed with a safety latch to secure the fiber
optic cable from accidental removal. The ONT employs a Class
1 laser that is already present in consumer products such as
DVD players and computer mice. The light emitted from the
laser is ‘colorless’ and is barely visible due to the number of
splits on the PON that attenuate the laser signal.
Property owners have also expressed concerns about how
long it takes to drop fiber cables to every resident. Lengthy
installs could make occupants angry about the inconvenience
and disruption. However, recent advancements in preconnectorized cables and routing can greatly speed the install with
spooled plug-and-play optics.
In older cities, many of the pre-World War II buildings have
poor copper plant. VDSL2-based services may be impaired
due to interference (crosstalk). As a result, the service provider
has to pull Ethernet cables. If the service provider has to install
new cabling anyway, installing fiber costs very little more than
installing Ethernet cables. The desktop ONT is an ideal fit in
this application, offering an elegant compact design with more
functionality than existing ONTs. BBP
1 Alcatel-Lucent outdoor ONT model with two POTS, one Ethernet, 1 RF
port compared with desktop ONT model with same interfaces.
| BROADBAND PROPERTIES | www.broadbandproper ties.com | July/August 2009
Municipal Fiber Networks
Texas School District Delivers
Online Learning Over Fiber
The school district in Mesquite, Texas, decided to build its own fiber network.
Board members knew the payback period would be long, but their goal was
to support the interactive learning technologies of today and tomorrow.
By Tim Donohoe ■ MRV Communications
E
ach day in the Mesquite Independent School District (MISD)
of Mesquite, Texas, more than
30,000 students and 3,000 employees
walk through the doors of 53 facilities.
Each one of them is looking to the district’s advanced network and technology
infrastructure to deliver a high-quality
K–12 education.
As technology has developed, so
have interactive teaching methods that
make use of bandwidth-intensive data
like video. The Mesquite school district
has introduced innovative educational
programs including a 61,000-watt radio
station that serves as a learning laboratory for students and an award-winning
instructional television department that
broadcasts 50,000 programs over 26
channels to the schools and community each year. To accommodate a much
more interactive and online learning
environment at the same time that the
district as a whole is growing, the school
district needed to increase the bandwidth and reach of its network.
The original backbone network included two 30-mile arches of 144-count
fiber linking an east and a west hub.
Two sets of single-strand optics connected each hub with separate directional runs, forming an asymmetric
bandwidth ring.
To connect the growing number of
schools and support facilities, the IT
team leased data circuits on a local carrier’s fiber optic network. The operating
cost for this solution, however, was very
expensive, totaling more than $500,000
per year, and the network didn’t even
reach all 53 facilities.
94
The Bonnie Gentry Elementary School uses the new fiber optic network installed by the Mesquite
Independent School District.
Ultimately, the economic inefficiency of leasing fiber, the anticipation
of more bandwidth-intensive interactive
learning programs and the proposed
expansion of the number of network
endpoints led the school district to investigate implementing its own fiber
infrastructure. In addition to saving the
cost of leasing lines, building its own fiber network enabled the district to have
complete control over its network.
Implementing the Network
First, the value of implementing a fiber
network needed to be approved by the
school board. With a total cost of $4.2
million, the payback period based on
operating cost savings was estimated to
be seven years. Although this was a long
payback period, the school board also
saw that the network would increase
bandwidth over current T1 speeds
(1.544 Mbps) and would facilitate increased interactive computing services
and offer improved instruction for the
children. Based on these advantages, the
board approved the project.
Once the project was approved, the
school district needed to move quickly to
implement the project during the summer when school was not in session. District IT staff had a very short timeframe
– which meant a very timely vendor selection process, as the district needed to
get the network up and running by the
time school started in the fall.
The district, which had always excelled in its management of technology,
About the Author
Tim Donohoe is director of business development for MRV Communications Inc.,
a networking company specializing in packet-optical transport, dense wavelength
division multiplexing, carrier Ethernet, 40G networking and out-of-band networking products for aerospace, defense and other communications applications. You can
reach him at tdonohoe@mrv.com.
| BROADBAND PROPERTIES | www.broadbandproper ties.com | July/August 2009
Municipal Fiber Networks
An optical termination unit with digital
diagnostics gives IT staff visibility into all of
the physical network elements.
met with a number of vendors in order
to gain a better understanding of market
trends. The IT team knew its ability to
upgrade and future-proof the network
was of great importance. The more visibility network architects had into the
market as a whole, the better they could
implement a network that would continue to grow and handle new services.
The next challenge was that the
school district’s existing network was set
up with eastern and western hubs, each
linking 24 sites with two fiber paths.
However, as the district expanded and
new facilities were built, the network
needed to accommodate a greater number of remote sites. Not only did the
district need to provide bandwidth to
service these new buildings, but it also
needed to give the main office an efficient method of managing those sites
with its existing IT staff.
Finding the Right
Demarc Device
One of the key elements of the network
buildout was to find a cost-effective demarcation device. Demarc devices are
typically used by carriers in connecting a
customer’s LAN to its network – they are
the gateway for the customer’s data onto
the carrier’s network. Since MISD was
acting as its own carrier, it would need
that carrier-grade technology to provide
the demarc functionality and to provide
the network management that would allow cost-effective centralized monitoring
and controlling of the network.
One of the main capabilities of a demarc device is media conversion, which
helps the carrier facilitate many different
physical interfaces on its customers’ LAN
equipment. This was especially important to the MISD team because it had a
variety of interfaces at its locations. Early
in the decision-making process, district
personnel evaluated six different demarc
architectures ranging from simple media conversion to fully managed optical
termination units (OTUs). But the ad-
vantage of having physical and network
management in the demarcation device
became critical because it helped the district to manage the network without a
dramatic expansion in staff.
The district’s choice was an optical
termination unit that supported digital
diagnostics giving IT staff a complete
view of the physical media. The IT team
uses those diagnostics to read the status on more than 240 optical elements
across the network, measuring transmitreceive for each one, thereby maintaining the visibility into the physical network elements. On one occasion, the
district had a fiber cut but wasn’t ready
to have it repaired immediately. The district IT staff was able to remotely leverage Spanning Tree network reconfigura-
tion capabilities in its demarc OTU to
automatically switch to the redundant
route. Once the alternate path had been
established, network management software notified the district and enabled it
to take the necessary steps to repair the
damaged connection without interrupting network service.
The district was able to complete
the project within 30 days, allowing the
network to be operational well before
school was back in session.
Implementing its own network has
proven to be a success for the school
district. Despite the seven-year payback
period, the district is now able to put
the $500,000 spent on yearly operating
expenses toward more important school
programs and initiatives. With the new
system in place, the school district can
provide students with the highest level of
technologies for a complete, interactive
learning environment. Additionally, with
its own network the school district can
easily adjust to support other technologies as the needs and demands of students
and faculty evolve over the years. BBP
s
e
t
a
l
u
t
a
Congr
Broadband
Properties
Magazine
For becoming an Enhanced Gold Sponsor at the
2010 Broadband Properties Summit.
For more information on Connexion,
visit www.connexiontechnologies.net.
You are cordially invited to come see Connexion at the upcoming
April 26 – 28, 2010
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 316-733-9122.
For other inquiries, call 877-588-1649, or visit www.bbpmag.com.
July/August 2009 | www.broadbandproper ties.com | BROADBAND PROPERTIES |
95
Connec ted Home
The Dawn of the Digital Home
Consumers want to connect more and more of their devices to each other
and to the Internet. Service providers should view this as an opportunity
to provide the consumer with new services – before someone else does.
By Jake Sailana ■ ZyXEL
C
onnectivity devices and
applications are the glue
that holds the Digital
Home together. Digital
Home customers want
it all: broadband Internet, interactive
IPTV across multiple TVs and computers, recordable and instantly replayable
live TV and simultaneous streaming,
chatting, downloading and more. While
one family member is busy watching TV,
another is online-gaming and a third is
live video-chatting with Uncle Frank on
vacation in Italy. Today’s connectivity
solutions make all of this possible.
Especially in a soft economy, families
are spending more time at home. There
couldn’t be a better time for the myriad
Connected Home options to become
standard household equipment, but the
average American consumer has not yet
cracked the Connected Home technopuzzle. Enter your friendly neighborhood telco.
For Telcos, the Time Is Now
The explosion in the amount of critical
information (videos, pictures, financial
data and more) stored digitally in the average household means that information
needs to be securely accessible from multiple locations and protected from hard
drive failures. This in turn has resulted
in demand for central storage devices
and back-up services. For the telco that
has already entered the home with traditional broadband and IPTV service, this
expansion into home connectivity presents itself as a timely opportunity: Free
the home now, before someone else does.
The opportunity for telcos to preside over Digital Home proliferation is
96
Even subscribers who can put together their
own home networks eventually have difficulty
troubleshooting – and of course the telco gets
the first complaint call. Standardizing home
networks and enabling remote management
lets you offer cost-effective support.
immense. They already have their foot
in the door via telephony and Internet
service, and they can now generate additional revenue by helping to set up and
manage Digital Home networks for subscribers. In addition to generating new
revenue from products and services, this
also helps them manage the customer
experience and reel in support costs.
Even subscribers who are able to put
together a home network themselves
eventually have difficulty troubleshooting. Of course the telco gets the first
complaint call and is expected to take
the blame for connection issues that
might in fact lie in any one of ten unrelated networked products. When service providers offer both the broadband
service and home networking products,
they can standardize deployments and
ensure compliance with standards like
TR069, facilitating remote service and
the associated cost reductions. Ultimately this improves the customer experience. Another opportunity lies in the
consolidation of all communications
and entertainment services on one bill.
Ethernet: Got Spackle?
Ethernet, HomePlug AV and Wireless
11n are three of the top networking
technologies that offer various advantages to telcos for home connectivity.
Let’s take a look.
Connecting computers, routers,
storage devices and other equipment to
set-top boxes by hard wire produces fast,
dependable and practical connectivity.
Once exclusively reserved for offices,
Ethernet cables and network adapters
are increasingly common in home networks – so long as customers are willing
to punch holes in their walls.
Some newer homes are prewired with
Cat 5 cable, making the job simple. But
even if you do have to bring out a drill,
Ethernet connectivity may be worth the
effort. Wired connection speeds can
theoretically reach up to 1 Gbps, ideal
for video transmissions, gaming and
About the Author
Jake Sailana is the communications manager for ZyXEL, a provider of complete
broadband solutions for service providers, businesses and consumers. Find out more
at www.us.zyxel.com.
| BROADBAND PROPERTIES | www.broadbandproper ties.com | July/August 2009
Connec ted Home
other applications that consume bandwidth. Wired connections are not prone
to interference from microwaves and
other sources. And manufacturers have
matured the technology over several
decades. It’s also cheaper than competing ways to connect and quite secure, so
long as customers incorporate hardware
or software firewalls.
Ye Olde WiFi
Ah, wireless. What could be freer? Who
wants Ethernet when you can connect
without wires? There used to be 802.11a
and 802.11b, until they begot 802.11g.
A great alphabetic leap brought us
802.11n, which still has not been certified as a standard, so everything at this
point is called 802.11n “draft.” Take a
router, a modem, some wireless-enabled
devices and voila: The customer can get
online from his backyard hammock.
One disadvantage to WiFi, however,
is its range, which is typically around
200 feet indoors for 802.11n, and half of
that for 802.11a/b/g. Broadcasting WiFi
also drains power, so it’s not as “green”
as wire. But then again, there are no
power tools involved in the setup.
Another concern with WiFi is security. With wires, access to the network
is available only to those who are physically connected. WiFi is broadcast in
multiple directions through the air, so
neighbors or people in proximity can
access and steal bandwidth unless the
customer is properly protected. Encryption can provide protection, although
both WEP and WPA technologies can
be defeated. WPA2 is recommended at
present.
Also, setting up a wireless network
can take some skill in getting devices
to talk to one another, particularly once
you start adding passwords and other security measures. It can be simple, but as
you add more devices, the complexity in
getting all of them communicating with
each other can be daunting.
HomePlug: The Invisible Network
Oddly enough, many people don’t know
there’s already a network infrastructure
built into virtually every house, apartment and condo. It requires no new wiring. It’s fast enough to stream HD media content over the home network. And
ZyXEL’s vision of the Digital Home.
it doesn’t broadcast openly like WiFi, so
security issues are negligible.
Give up? It’s the electrical wiring.
Powerline technology uses the electrical system in the home to connect devices, and since virtually every room in
the home has an electrical outlet, the network is already laid out and ready to use.
All that’s needed are two or more
adapters. You plug a device into an
adapter, and then plug the adapter into
an outlet. Do the same with other computers (Mac and/or PC), set-top box,
Xbox and other devices, and you’ve got
yourself a network. No weird configurations to master, no security concerns,
no range limitations, no holes to drill or
cables to lay.
You do need to plug the adapters into
the wall, and not a power strip – unless
the surge protector specifies it’s made for
HomePlug, like ZyXEL’s PLA-491. You
may also want to use line conditioners
between computers and electrical outlets to reduce line noise, which can slow
HomePlug networks.
Finally, for those who can’t live
without WiFi, the best of both worlds is
available with ZyXEL’s PLA-450, which
serves as a HomePlug AV Wireless Access Point.
Broadband Access Gateways
The success of triple-play and rich-media
services relies on the operator’s ability
to provide high-bandwidth broadband
connections at the right cost. The demand for service flexibility and economy
requires operators to offer many access
types and technologies to reach all subscribers effectively.
Fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) infrastructure provides operators with the
best option in terms of speed, flexibility
and headroom to introduce new services
quickly. Passive optical network technology, used for most FTTH deployments,
is accessed at subscriber premises using
gateways commonly referred to as optical network terminals (ONTs). ONTs
come in various configurations to allow
the service provider to choose one that
best fits the subscriber needs. Some include a multiport Ethernet switch or just
a single Ethernet outlet that can be coupled with one of the above-mentioned
network devices to form a lightning-fast
home network performing at speeds
July/August 2009 | www.broadbandproper ties.com | BROADBAND PROPERTIES |
97
Connec ted Home
of 100 Mbps or more. With built-in
quality of service and security features,
ONTs securely distribute the enormous
bandwidth that zips through them at
the speed of light among the various demanding applications like IPTV, online
gaming and more.
Multifunctional xDSL gateways
with built-in wireless routers, switches,
HomePlug AV adapters and other functionality offer telcos several advantages:
• Reduction of clutter in subscribers’
homes.
• Cost-effectiveness for purchasing
and inventory
• A one-box solution that is easy to deploy and manage remotely
• The ability to start additional services remotely upon the subscriber’s
request
Interfaces
Prepare your community for tomorrow
with Connexion Technologies…
You can provide for the ever-changing technological needs
of residents without touching your budget. By partnering with
Connexion Technologies to install a cutting-edge Fiber to the
Home network in your community, your residents can enjoy the
best entertainment and communications services delivered over
a fiber-optic network. This network will also be ready to handle
almost any new service that comes to market.
Find out more at www.connexiontechnologies.net
or contact us at 919.535.7329.
98
Beyond the basic hardware, standardized interfaces with modern enhancements such as TR069 remote management provide the value-add a telco needs
to compete with big-box electronics
stores. Centralized management, troubleshooting and configuration lets telcos
offer services surpassing those available
to customers today from the electronics
stores, allowing them to enhance customer satisfaction, increase ARPU and
reduce churn – an ideal trifecta.
In Conclusion
There is a growing demand for high-tech
connected homes with multiple, built-in
entertainment and productivity options
that blur the lines between where the
content originates (TV networks, Internet, Netflix) and the device on which
it is accessed. This demand is fueled
by the slow economy, which is forcing
more families to stay at home. The trend
is also transforming the way we socialize, with the primary method of staying in touch with long-distance friends
and family shifting toward video chats.
These changes have not only increased
the consumer appetite for faster broadband, they have opened up entirely new
opportunities for telcos.
By helping their subscribers set up
and manage the Connected Home, telcos can open up new revenue streams
through sales of new products and services. Like the gateways, other home
connectivity solutions powered by
TR069 standard will make it economical for telcos to remotely install and
troubleshoot the devices as well as start
and stop new services. This will reduce
support costs and speed up response
time, enhancing customer satisfaction
and experience.
There couldn’t be a better example
of a win-win situation. Consumers get
all their communication and entertainment services on one bill as well as a
single point of responsibility for making
the system work, and the telcos not only
increase their ARPU, they also have a
chance to stay close to their biggest assets – their customers!
| BROADBAND PROPERTIES | www.broadbandproper ties.com | July/August 2009
BROADBAND PROPERTIES Marketplace
To reserve space in this section and LEVERAGE the power of your advertising via print, digital, and multimedia exposure in
the global market, Contact Irene Prescott at 316-733-9122 or email irene@broadbandproperties.com.
THE LEADER
in Fiber to the Home (FTTH) Connectivity
Hot topic
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Moderated by Spot On Networks
Learn. Comment. Pursue.
(877) 768-6687
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VISIONARY BROADBAND ARCHITECTURE
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July/August 2009 | www.broadbandproper ties.com | BROADBAND PROPERTIES |
99
Ad Index
Advertiser
Page
Calendar
Website
ADC
7
www.graybar.com/adc
Adtran
39
www.adtran.com/stimulus
Advanced Media Technologies
63
www.amt.com
AFL Telecommunications
5
www.afltele.com
Atlantic Engineering Group
82, 99
www.aeg.cc
AT&T
Inside Front Cover www.att.com/communities
Blonder Tongue Labs
15
www.blondertongue.com
Broadband Properties Magazine
50E
www.bbpmag.com
Broadband Properties 25, 26, 48, 50A-50D,
www.broadband
Summit 2010
51, 61, 64, 92, 95, 100
properties.com
Calix
1
www.calix.com
Connexion Technologies
98, 99
www.connexiontechnologies.com
Corning Cable Systems
Back Cover
www.corning.com/cablesystems/
ftthprograms
Design Nine
69, 99
www.designnine.com
Display Systems International
93
www.displaysystemsintl.com
DirecTV
3
www.directv.com
FTTH Conference
30-31
www.ftthconference.com
Georgia Telecom Supply
50F
www.gatelsupply.com
Great Lakes Data
44
www.cablebilling.com
Greenfield Communications
11
www.egreenfield.com
Hiawatha Broadband Communications
9
www.hbci.com
Montclair Fiber
55
www.montclairfiber.com
Multicom, Inc.
75
www.multicominc.com
OFS
13, 99
www.ofsoptics.com
On Trac
99
www.ontrac.com
SuperComm 2009
85
www.supercomm2009.com
Spot On Networks
99
www.spotonetworks.com
Suttle
47
www.suttlesoho.com
Telco TV
83
www.telcotvonline.com
Verizon Enhanced Communities Inside Back Cover www.verizon.com/communities
MARK YOUR
CALENDAR
The Leading Conference on Broadband Technologies and Services
April 26 – 28, 2010
InterContinental Hotel – Dallas
Addison, Texas
“… our experience at the show this year was tremendous! You and your team did a great job recruiting
top notch attendees during a tumultuous market. My sales team set meetings with key retrofit targets and
managed to engage potential future developer partners of which we were previously unaware.”
– Carter Steg, Executive Vice President,
Corporate Sales and Marketing, Connexion Technologies
To Exhibit or Sponsor, contact: Irene Prescott at
irene@broadbandproperties.com, or call 316-733-9122
For other inquiries, call 877-588-1649, or visit www.bbpmag.com
100
September
15
WCAI Annual International Symposium
Co-located with 4G World
McCormick Place
Chicago, IL
220-452-7823 • www.wcai.com
15 – 18
WiMAX World /4G World
McCormick Place
Chicago, IL
617-259-2300 • www.4gworld.com
21 – 24
BICSI Fall Conference
MGM Grand Hotel & Convention Center
Las Vegas, NV
813-979-1991 • www.bicsi.org
27 – Oct 1
FTTH Conference
George R Brown Convention Center
Houston, TX
613-226-9988 • www.ftthconference.com
October
11 – 14
Comptel Plus
Orlando World Center Marriott
Orlando, FL
202-296-6650 • www.comptel.org
21 – 23
Supercomm 2009
McCormick Place
Chicago, IL
203-840-4800 • www.supercomm2009.com
25 – 27
CTAM 2009
Denver Convention Center
Denver, CO
www.ctamconferences.com
28 -30
SCTE
Colorado Convention Center
Denver, CO
800-823-1542 • www.scte.org
November
10 – 12
TelcoTV 09
Orange County Convention Center
Orlando, FL
800-441-8826 • www.lightreading.com
April 2010
26 – 29
Broadband Properties Summit
InterContinental Hotel – Dallas
Addison, Texas
877-588-1649 • www.bbpmag.com
| BROADBAND PROPERTIES | www.broadbandproper ties.com | July/August 2009
Connected Communities
© 2009 AT&T Intellectual Property. All rights reserved. AT&T, the AT&T logo and all other AT&T marks
contained herein are trademarks of AT&T Intellectual Property and/or AT&T affiliated companies.
Necessity
has evolved.
Technology is always changing. You want to know that
what you have today won’t be obsolete tomorrow. AT&T
Connected CommunitiesSM ensures that your residents
have all of the high speed Internet, Advanced TV, and voice
necessities of modern living. AT&T’s state-of-the-art network,
incorporating fiber technology, delivers next-generation
services to your communities. Call today and maximize
the value of your property both now and for the future.
To learn more, visit att.com/communities
Prescription for Relief
$7.2 billion can create a lot of broadband developments
but also a lot of questions and headaches.
What is a NOFA? How do you define “broadband”?
Who can help me with network design?
What should be the focus of my application for funds?
When your head starts throbbing and your stress levels
rise, let us help. Corning Cable Systems can ease your
discomfort by providing overview information on program
requirements, RUS product listings and design support.
For quick relief, contact Dr. Deutsch today.
econstimulusinfo@corning.com
© 2009 Corning Cable Systems LLC