14 | BROADBAND PROPERTIES | www.broadbandproperties.com | December 2008

Surry Telephone, an ILEC in Dobson, North Carolina, has deployed fiber to the home using both active Ethernet and GePON tech-nologies, and is delivering IPTV service over the fiber. Surry is using Allied Tele-sis’ integrated Multiservice Access Plat-form (iMAP) and its integrated Mul-tiservice Gateway (iMG), which also support its POTS and ADSL2 services.

Michael Stanley, Surry Telephone’s general manager, says of Allied Telesis’ solution, “It’s one system for all services, not stacked boxes and management sys-tems. Operationally that makes the total cost of our network lower and easier to maintain. Multiple size chassis, flexible

architecture, and easy upgrade paths means we can spend less today, and eas-ily grow and evolve our network, and thus our budget, as we need to. No more forklift upgrades, no new systems for a new technology, and true lower total cost of ownership.”

Siren Telephone, a rural ILEC in Wisconsin, is also providing IP triple play services using the Allied Telesis iMAP and iMG over both copper and fiber infrastructures. Siren Telephone deployed ADSL, POTS, active FTTH, and T1 over Ethernet, often combined in the same chassis.

An existing Allied Telesis customer, SureWest Communications, which has

been using the company’s iMGs since 2004, announced that it had approved AT’s fourth-generation iMG626MOD as the home gateway for its active fiber-to-the-home deployment in Sacramento. SureWest is delivering HDTV, multi-stream HD DVR service, symmetrical Internet access at speeds up to 50 Mbps, and interactive VoIP phone service with more than 22 features. CTO Bill De-Muth cites the new gateway’s integrated HPNA (for distributing signals over existing home wiring) and extensive remote diagnostics, which reduce truck rolls for in-home wiring issues, saying, “Both are significant factors in gaining new subscribers and maintaining long-term customer relationships.”

Deployers are moving ahead with FTTH builds in the United States and around the world. But if new financing remains tough to get, they may increasingly look to bootstrap and deploy networks more slowly.

By Masha Zager ■ Broadband Properties

No Shortage of New ProjectsNo Shortage of New Projects

Telcos Push Ahead With Fiber

INDEPENDENT TELCOS

In the last month while we’ve watched Wall Street un-ravel, Detroit flirt with bankruptcy, and national retail-ers begin shuttering stores, fiber-to-the-home deployers have continued to forge ahead as best they could. In this report we list several new deployers, both at home and abroad. Many others are expanding or upgrading their net-works and adding new services. Open-access networks like UTOPIA in Utah and Swisscom in Switzerland are attract-ing new service providers. Verizon is staying on track with its massive FiOS deployment.

It’s encouraging to see that these deployers have faith in the underlying value of fiber connections, and in their abil-ity to sell services over their networks. Yet we’ve heard about other deployments that have stalled, waiting for financing; even those that are still building are not sure how long they can keep going.

For example, when I asked Steve Katka at Albany Mutual Telephone, a Minnesota cooperative serving 3,450 custom-ers, about the greatest challenge in completing his FTTH buildout, he said, without a moment’s hesitation, “Being able to afford it. Will we have the wherewithal and the ca-pacity to continue to finance it?” Albany Mutual, like many small companies, is bootstrapping its project – building the first phase out of general funds, and then planning to rely on opex savings and revenues from new services to finance the remaining phases over five years. The plan will work if take rates are high enough, soon enough. If not, Katka will have to look for a loan – or stretch out the build.

Fiber to the home is our future. Let’s hope that repairing the damage of the past doesn’t overwhelm our ability to find our way to the future.

– MZ

December 2008 | www.broadbandproperties.com | BROADBAND PROPERTIES | 15

When Telephone Electronics Corporation (TEC), the par-ent company for a group of independent telcos in Missis-sippi, Alabama and Tennessee, decided to begin offering IPTV services, it prepared for a major network upgrade. Last fall the company began installing its new equipment: Cisco Ethernet switches in the network core; an IP-PRIME headend to receive the satellite signal; a MetaSwitch appli-ance to handle VoIP; and ADTRAN 5000 multiservice access platforms, supporting both ADSL2+ and GPON, for the ac-cess network. Once the buildout is complete, around 6,000 customers will be served with ADSL2+ and another 2,500 with GPON.

The next challenge involved swapping out the legacy equipment in the field and replacing it with ADTRAN access platforms. The obvious solution would have been to buy a second cabinet for the ADTRAN shelves, but this would have cost between $10,000 and $15,000 per cabinet. It also would have required going back to each landowner to secure rights of way – a process that takes a lot of time and money.

When TEC held a planning meeting with EMBARQ Lo-gistics, the supplier of the new equipment, EMBARQ came up with an ingenious alternative:

Put the new access platform into one of EMBARQ’s trail-ers and haul it over to the existing cabinet. Redirect the traf-fic to the equipment in the trailer. Gut the existing cabinet, remove the old equipment, prepare the cabinet for the new equipment, put in the ADTRAN shelf and power protection, then hook it up and move the live traffic back to the retro-fitted cabinet. The whole process would take between one and two days for each site.

EMBARQ had used the trailer for its own network up-grades, but this was the first time the company had pro-posed the approach in the independent telco market.

“The outage period is very minimal,” says Chad Lock, fields sales executive, EMBARQ. “When the word is given, you take all the cards out of the temporary shelf and put them into the new shelf. You turn the power on at the head, and the customers come up in a few minutes.” The crew includes two EMBARQ installers, a field project manager and a couple of technicians from TEC. The average cost per

cabinet is $5,900, including all installation, engineering and project management.

TEC has already been through this process 25 times – about three cabinets per week – and is seeing a savings of 40 to 50 percent by leveraging its existing investments..“We’re reusing the pad and equipment we’ve already paid for,” says Lisa Wigington, director of LEC and video operations at TEC. “It’s a really good solution for us in that sense. It also was a good way to have a real small [outage] window.”

UpgradeS dUrIng WorkIng HoUrS Another reason for the savings is that TEC can perform the upgrade during normal working hours, because the down-time is so minimal. With a normal “forklift” upgrade, the outage would last several hours and the swap would have to take place at night, when all of the techs would be earn-ing overtime.

Yet another benefit of using the trailer is that it increases speed to market. There are no right-of-way issues, no deal-ings with the power company, and no site preparation. “They can bring services up sooner,” Lock says. “They’re realizing revenue before they ever pay an invoice for any equipment.”

Brent Fisher, TEC’s director of network operations, adds, “You’ve got a depreciated asset sitting there and you don’t have to replace it. It helps you as an ILEC to collect deprecia-tion sooner for the electronics.”

The savings will continue after the project is complete because the ADTRAN equipment supports modem self-dis-covery, reducing the need for truck rolls. Besides enabling IPTV, the TA 5000 and other upgrades will also give TEC the ability to offer a wider range of broadband services.

This process works so well that TEC is considering using the trailer approach internally for other tasks, such as disas-ter recovery. EMBARQ, too, is trying to replicate the success with other telco customers. “We’ve done a lot of planning with ADTRAN,” Lock says. “A lot of planning and due dili-gence goes into this. There are a slew of different cabinet types, and you have to have certification for each one. Each has a different interior space.”

TEC is now deploying IPTV to “friendlies” and plans to start commercial services in the first quarter of 2009.

With eMBarQ’s Ingenious Trailer, Telco Quickly Swaps out Field equipment

16 | BROADBAND PROPERTIES | www.broadbandproperties.com | December 2008

In Minnesota, rural telco Albany Mutual Telephone is turning up its first fiber-to-the-home subscribers, offering In-ternet access at speeds up to 100 Mbps. General manager Steve Katka says the company plans to replace all three of its exchanges with fiber over the next five years, allowing it to offer IPTV throughout its entire service area. Albany Mutual is using an active Ethernet solution from Pannaway (recently acquired by Enablence). Katka adds, “Everywhere we’ve gone with fiber to the home, the response to it has been very, very good. People are excited to hear they’ll have the service available at their home – they realize it adds value to the property.”

Texas cooperative GVTC is connecting hundreds of addi-tional customers with fiber to the home. The company recently completed FTTH projects in the subdivisions of Bavarian Hills, Horseshoe Falls, Serene Hills and Timberline Park, to-taling almost 700 homes. GVTC is in the process of a five-year, $35 million expansion project that will bring FTTH to more than 16,500 properties.

Xfone subsidiary NTS Communications has begun work on the final portion of a three-phase buildout of its fiber-to-the-premises network for Levelland and Smyer,Texas. Phase three includes the construction of a distribution plant in Levelland as well as completion of the installation of a fiber network con-necting Lubbock, where the company currently offers FTTP service, to the central point of presence in Levelland. Guy Nis-

senson, president and CEO of Xfone, comments, “Our FTTP business demonstrated sequential revenue growth of 4 percent from the first to the second quarter of 2008, which we believe can be attributed to customer recognition of the advantages of our voice, video and data triple play offering. Our experience with this buildout, from the economical Rural Utilities Service financing to the construction of the network itself, provides an excellent model for our future expansion.”

California FTTH provider PAXIO has adopted a grass-roots approach to marketing after discovering that San Fran-cisco Bay Area residents are willing to recruit their neighbors and colleagues in order to accumulate enough demand to make deployment economically feasible. The “Fiber Advocate” model seeks to convert existing homeowner associations and business parks to fiber. Successful overbuilds throughout the Bay Area have allowed PAXIO, a CLEC, to increase its subscriber base and extend its network reach.

This summer, a San Jose condo owner obtained approval from his homeowner association and gathered enough owner interest to deploy PAXIO’s FTTH service to all 62 units in his building. The same model is also working in the business sec-tor, somewhat to PAXIO’s surprise, with companies in a com-mercial park banding together in order to demonstrate demand to the property manager and get fiber installed throughout the park. Cost savings, increased tenant attraction, retention and satisfaction and increased marketability in tough times cre-ate a win-win model for both landlord and tenant, according to PAXIO.

Pembroke Telephone Company is using RGB Networks’ Modular Media Converter (MMC) to deliver local broadcast TV channels to subscribers in North Bryan County, Georgia. Part of Pembroke’s network consists of fiber to the home. At the central headend, off-air receivers take in the locally broadcast channels via antenna and then output the programming to the MMC. The MMC, which supports both MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 protocols, then converts the video to Gigabit Ethernet so it can be transported throughout the network core. Advanced Media Technologies (AMT), a major reseller of RGB’s products, also played a significant role in this deployment with Pembroke.

FTTP provider FiberNet, which operates in the Appa-lachian region, will team with BT Conferencing to provide videoconferencing solutions to businesses over its fiber optic network. Chief operating officer David Armentrout says the service, which will use Cisco Systems TelePresence products, is well timed because it offers opportunities for cost savings in a time of economic challenges.

Hancock Telecom, which in 2002 became the first Indiana ILEC to provide FTTH and today offers triple-play services for

“Everywhere we’ve gone with fiber to the home, the response has been

very, very good. People realize it adds value to the property.”

December 2008 | www.broadbandproperties.com | BROADBAND PROPERTIES | 17

Credit crunch or no credit crunch, the city of Salisbury, North Carolina, has secured favorable financing for its municipal fiber optic network. Local press reports that Salisbury issued nearly $35 million in 20-year debt, most of it

for the FTTH project. The average coupon rate is 5.108 per-cent. The city plans to begin building its network in 2009 and start offering services in 2010. The primary underwriter was BB&T Capital Markets.

Muni Fiber project in north Carolina gets Funding

MuNICIPaLITIES

less than $100 per month, has said that, going forward, it will use OFS AllWave FLEX ZWP fiber in all of its cable and con-nectivity products. The AllWave FLEX ZWP fiber is used to connect businesses and residences in Greenfield, Indiana, and surrounding areas.

“Working with a single vendor and single premium fiber, AllWave FLEX ZWP fiber, end to end, throughout our OSP

and CO network, has made our FTTH rollout in Central In-diana seamless and allowed us to take advantage of 50 percent more of the spectrum for future DWDM-PON applications,” says George Plisinski II, senior fiber technician, Hancock Tele-com. “AllWave Flex Jumpers have solved our high attenuation issue when splicing to drop at the house and relieved us of fi-ber breakage problems.” OFS says its fiber products could save Hancock up to 40 percent in overall network costs. BBp

In Monticello, Minnesota, incumbent provider TDS filed an ap-peal after the dismissal of its lawsuit to stop the city’s munici-pal fiber build. The city continues to defend the suit. Following are excerpts from the letter Mayor Clint Herbst of Monticello wrote to his constituents:

We talked with TDS on several occasions to explore options to give the citizens and businesses of Monticello cutting-edge technology. We felt that fiber optic technol-ogy would attract another level of business and industry that would offer our residents well-paying, local jobs. It has been and continues to be the city council’s goal to create a city where you can work, live and raise a family. It was also very important to make sure every resident was given the opportunity to experience this technology.

We expressed our concern that every resident and busi-ness should be able to access the fiber optic system. We were told that they “could not justify the expense” to their shareholders and they “already had good copper in the ground.” Their plan was to continue to offer fiber to new developments, but not address existing homes.

Therefore, the council decided to put it up to you, the citizens of Monticello. You made your voice heard loud and clear by passing a referendum by 74 percent. That was after being bombarded with telephone calls and mailings from TDS that were very misleading. Claims were made that this system would cost the citizens of Monticello 25 million dol-lars, but TDS knows how revenue bonds work. They know that these dollars are raised through investors and it is these investors who would be on the hook if this system failed.

TDS tries to claim that they are suing us to protect the citizens of Monticello. If they were really concerned about you, they would have taken the many opportunities we of-

fered to work together to lower the overall cost of offering fiber to each and every home in Monticello. If they were re-ally concerned about you, they would have offered lower prices and huge discounts before the city passed a referen-dum to bring fiber to every home in Monticello. Why does TDS suddenly have a big heart and lower their rates? I don’t know about you, but it makes me mad that I feel I’ve been overpaying for years!

The TDS lawsuit was dismissed. It came as no surprise to me. I could see it for what it was, an attempt to stall the inevitable; an attempt to once again keep you under their thumb paying some of the highest rates in the country. TDS had 30 days to appeal and although they continually claim that they want to expedite this suit, they waited 29 days before issuing their Notice to Appeal. Does this reek of an-other stall tactic? You decide.

Monticelloans should be enjoying fiber to the home. Not from the curb, but to the home. The city is committed to bringing fiber to your home and offering services such as full high-definition TV, telephone services (landline, VOIP, cellular) and ultra-high-speed Internet (both upload and download).

If TDS is really concerned about you, they will end this lawsuit and find ways to work with the city to put this type of technology in place. They keep saying that they want to work with us, they keep saying they have held their hand out. TDS, it is time to stop punishing the citizens of Mon-ticello. We know that the dismissal of this lawsuit will not be overturned. We know that the monopoly is over. If you really want to work with us like you claim, give me a call. I look forward to hearing from you. I look forward to putting the citizens of Monticello first. Any good business would do just that.

Monticello Mayor to TdS: ‘give Me a Call’

18 | BROADBAND PROPERTIES | www.broadbandproperties.com | December 2008

In Chattanooga, Tennessee, the board of the municipal utility EPB gave the company general authorization to negotiate and execute video franchise agreements with local governments. EPB plans to negotiate its first franchise agreement with the City of Chattanooga in the coming weeks. Video franchising is a step toward EPB’s offering FTTH services, including high-speed Internet, video entertainment, and digital phone, to all customers in its service area.

“We could have gone the route of other providers, with a statewide fran-chising agreement,” says Harold De-Priest, EPB’s president and CEO. “But we are a local company, looking out for the interests of our customers and com-munity. And to us, that means negotiat-ing individually with the different towns and municipalities in our 600-mile ser-vice area, to make sure everyone feels comfortable with the agreement.”

The open access network UTOPIA, run by a consortium of Utah cities, has

been struggling to recover from a series of financial and policy missteps. Now there are signs that the recovery is tak-ing hold: In October UTOPIA’s flagship business provider, Veracity Communi-cations, renewed its agreement with the network and later said it would expand services. In November, the network an-nounced agreements with two new ser-vice providers:

Fibernet Corp., a Utah ISP (and a different company from the FiberNet mentioned in the independent telco sec-tion), has inaugurated business Internet services on UTOPIA’s network. Lee Livingston, Fibernet’s chief financial of-ficer, says, “UTOPIA enables us to cost-effectively provide our customers with virtually unlimited bandwidth over a carrier-class network. This will add sig-nificant value to our co-location, Web hosting and other Internet services.”

FuzeCore LLC, which provides busi-ness broadband services in five Western states, will now provide broadband In-

ternet and VoIP services to UTOPIA business and residential customers. Tim McClanahan, president of FuzeCore, says, “We are impressed with the speed and capacity of the UTOPIA network and the opportunity it provides for us to serve customers in Utah.”

And then there were 22: Another mu-nicipal fiber optic consortium, ECFiber in Vermont, lost one of its 23 member towns, Williamstown, when the board of selectmen voted down the project unani-mously, though an earlier referendum in the town had supported the project. Se-lectmen were concerned about possible financial exposure for the town. In addi-tion, there seemed to be confusion about what the project entailed; according to town minutes, one selectman said an employee of the incumbent provider had told him there was already a fiber optic line running through the town (which has no broadband service) and “asked why you would pay for something you already have in your town.” BBp

Four years ago, Verizon began its FiOS fiber-to-the-premises de-ployments in suburbs and small cities. While deployments in these areas are still going forward, Verizon has also begun going after video franchises in larger cities now that it has the technol-ogy and the experience to install fiber in high-rise and mid-rise MDUs. Earlier this year it obtained franchises in New York City – where it is now turning up services in the boroughs of Brooklyn and the Bronx – followed by Washing-ton, DC. Now it is pursuing franchises in two other East Coast cities, Wilm-ington and Philadelphia.

Verizon filed its video franchise ap-plication in Wilmington, Delaware, in November, after several months of dis-cussions with city officials. It has com-mitted to make FiOS TV available to a

significant number of subscribers within two years, and to all residential areas within five years.

The franchise application provides the city with up to three educational and governmental access channels; franchise fees of 5 percent of gross revenues on cable TV service; financial support for the city’s educational and governmental channels and institutional network; and customer service provisions, including a walk-in service center.

The Wilmington Cable, Video and Telecommunications Commission, City Council Finance Committee and full Council now will consider Verizon’s ap-plication for a 10-year franchise.

In Philadelphia, the City Council is now considering a proposed 15-year agreement with Verizon. As part of that agreement, Verizon has committed to

make FiOS TV available throughout the city within seven years. Subject to franchise approval by year-end, Veri-zon could begin offering FiOS TV ser-vice in portions of the city within the first year. It would then offer service to about a third of city residences within three years, and 70 percent within five years. Other franchise terms are similar to those proposed in Wilmington.

WorkIng WITH LandLordSIn addition to pursuing video franchises for entire towns and cities, Verizon must continue to work with property owners and managers to bring FiOS to MDUs. It made an agreement last year with property manager Aimco to make FiOS broadband services available to residents of 27,000 apartments in Aimco housing complexes in 11 states, and it expects to

Verizon Going After More Big-City Video Franchises

RBOC uPDaTE

December 2008 | www.broadbandproperties.com | BROADBAND PROPERTIES | 19

complete this buildout by year-end. FiOS TV will be available to Aimco residents only in those areas where Verizon has ob-tained video franchises. An Aimco rep-resentative says FiOS broadband services will help differentiate the communities and offer amenities to residents who are interested in online gaming, online vid-eos and other new services.

In New York City, Verizon has signed an agreement with the Trump Organization to bring FiOS services to the buildings it manages. It is now preparing to offer FiOS in three lux-ury buildings housing more than 500 condominium apartments: the Trump Parc (the former Barbizon Plaza Hotel), Trump Park East and 610 Park Avenue (the former Mayfair Hotel). Two other Trump buildings were wired for FiOS earlier in the year, even before Verizon was awarded the video franchise in New York City. Trump Organization chairman and president Donald Trump says the delivery of FiOS services to his buildings continues “the high standard of excellence I demand,” while chief op-erating officer Matthew Calamari says he believes FiOS technology “will sup-

port future applications our residents will adopt.” Trump and Verizon are ex-ploring other Trump properties that can be served by Verizon FiOS.

Web Computing ServiCeS for fioS CuStomerS Business FiOS subscribers can now use WebOffice, a collaborative Web-based tool enabling small and midsized busi-nesses to work with peers, clients and vendors in a secure virtual intranet envi-ronment. Users can meet online in real time to integrate their work, develop ideas, set goals, and manage projects and business operations. As a hosted service, WebOffice does not require any hardware or software investment by the customer; there is also no need for in-house IT to support the service.

Verizon says WebOffice eliminates workspace borders by offering anytime access wherever the user needs to work – either in the office using Verizon’s DSL or FiOS Internet service; at home; or on the road using Verizon Wireless BroadbandAccess. Users can coor-dinate schedules and calendars, share documents (with secure access control),

build and use databases, host Web meet-ings, manage expense reports, make announcements and more, from their desktop or notebook computers. Web-Office’s interactive Web conferencing capability can reduce or eliminate the need for costly business travel.

Pricing for WebOffice begins at $56.99 per month for up to five users and $94.99 per month for six to 10 us-ers. The price is discounted when Web-Office is bundled with other offerings.

In a signal that it is not adopting IPTV any time soon, Verizon renewed its agreement with BigBand Networks to deliver the video services infrastruc-ture for FiOS TV. BigBand, whose plat-forms channel RF video signals onto Verizon’s network, has supported FiOS TV since its launch in 2005, and contin-ues to collaborate with Verizon on new solutions. Verizon recently deployed its 1,500th BigBand Broadband Multime-dia-service Router in the FiOS network. BigBand Networks’ platforms are based on open standards, and interoperate with many products from other vendors in Verizon’s network. bbp

Yes, greenfield developments are still being built, and their owners still recognize the value of fiber optic amenities to tenants and buyers. Last month Connexion Technologies, the largest of the fiber optic amenity pro-viders, made two major announcements:

• The Flats at Kernan, a luxury student housing development adjacent to the University of North Florida in Jack-sonville, is partnering with Connex-ion to bring fiber-based entertain-ment and communications services to residents. “This fiber-optic net-work will deliver an incredible pack-age of high-speed Internet and tele-vision services not yet seen by most in the market,” says developer Will Morgan, president of JDR Commu-

nities. “The beauty of the network is that it will not only meet the current technological needs of our residents, but also their future needs….As our students’ technology demands in-crease, we know that we’re ready to keep up with the pace at The Flats of Kernan. From online coursework and file sharing to online multiplayer gaming, thanks to fiber’s unlimited bandwidth, we can always deliver what our students want and need.”

In addition to fiber to the unit, the community also features a clubroom with widescreen TV, game room, Internet café, business center, group study room, and WiFi throughout, which, the developer notes, “sup-ports academic achievement.”

• Connexion will also build a FTTH network to deliver triple-play ser-vices throughout Belvedere Neigh-borhood, a multiuse development in Charlottesville, Virginia. Drew Holz-warth, COO of Stonehaus, developer of Belvedere Neighborhood, says the network will contribute to the neigh-borhood’s “sustainable values” by al-lowing residents to work from home. “From physicians who have the need to download an x-ray in an instant, to a computer programmer working from home, to a stay-at-home parent who wants to enjoy the Internet at the highest speeds, the luxury of fiber to the home will be enjoyed by all,” says Holzwarth. bbp

Two New Developments Are Fiber-Wired

FIBER OPTIC AMENITY PROVIDERS

20 | BROADBAND PROPERTIES | www.broadbandproperties.com | December 2008

At the FTTH Conference in Nashville, we had an op-portunity to talk with John Brown, head of CityLink Fiber Holdings in Albuquerque, New Mexico. As we reported last June, CityLink bought the assets of a bankrupt metro fiber provider and is rolling out FTTP in downtown Albuquerque. Brown has ambitious plans to put more fiber in the ground, as well as innovative ideas about how to get it there.

In Albuquerque, where he would like to deploy fiber citywide, Brown is extending the network using Tera-Span’s microtrenching technology. His company also owns two robotic devices that enable placement of fiber in storm drains. Brown is trying to bring the Albuquerque municipal government on board as an anchor tenant – which he says would pay for much of the build.

To bring fiber to more US cities, he plans to piggyback on ongoing water main replacements and sewer line re-pairs. Much of this work is funded by the federal Environ-mental Protection Administration. Whether CityLink bids on and wins such projects itself, or whether it makes deals with contractors already working on these projects, Brown hopes to place fiber optic conduit in the ground while the other infrastructure is being replaced. Joint trenching with other utilities greatly reduces the cost of laying fiber – one of the reasons FTTH is usually so much less expensive in

greenfield developments than retrofits. Brown says a single crew, with proper training and tools, could do both sewer repair and fiber installation.

While almost every city in the United States needs to upgrade its water and sewer infrastructure, Brown says Tier 2 and 3 cities offer the best opportunities for outsid-ers to compete. His next move is likely to be in Santa Fe, where the historic nature of the city has made it difficult to get permits to dig up the streets. If he can put fiber in the ground through a joint trenching arrangement with other utilities, he is confident there will be a market for it. As it does in Albuquerque, CityLink will serve business and residential customers itself and also wholesale fiber to in-terested CLECs.

Even though many fiber providers prefer to start by serving the more lucrative business customers, Brown says residential customers are more loyal. Because there is so little competition for very-high-speed service, “You’ll keep the customer as long as your customer service and pricing are reasonable,” he points out. In addition, telecommuters who use CityLink connections for private VLANs (virtual lo-cal area networks) introduce CityLink to the IT staffs at their companies – eventually bringing in the business customers by word of mouth.

CityLink plans Urban Fiber deployments

FibreSpeed Wales, a government-supported project, launched its open access fiber network in November with a backbone stretching across North Wales and points of presence at 12 business parks. Service providers will be able to use the network to meet business demand for bandwidth in these areas. The first phase will focus on linking up 12 strategic business parks in North Wales, with subsequent phases cover-ing other areas of Wales. Ieuan Wyn Jones, deputy first minis-ter of Wales, says, “We all want a vibrant, booming economy in Wales, and high-speed communications infrastructure is perhaps the single most important component of that.”

Swiss incumbent telco Swisscom says it will also be opening its new FTTH network to competitive providers, making In-ternet bandwidth available at 30 to 50 Mbps downstream and up to 10 Mbps upstream. It has already negotiated agreements with four Internet service providers – VTX, Green, Netstream and Init7 – to test its new infrastructure beginning in March and to launch commercial offerings to residential customers and small and midsized enterprises next fall.

These offerings will focus on neighborhoods in Zurich, Ba-sel and Geneva that have already been fiber-connected. Swiss-com plans to connect about 100,000 households to the FTTH network by the end of 2009. The partners are all free to struc-

ture their own customer and reseller offerings; Netstream plans to offer wholesale IPTV services, while Init7 will offer Inter- net access.

Taking open access a step further than most providers, Swisscom also invited partners from the telecommunications, cable and utilities industries to work with it on building the fi-ber optic network. As a result, Internet service providers will be able to choose between several network operators and a variety of technologies.

Mälarenergi Metro Network, which has a contract with the Swedish municipality of Västerås, became the first pro-vider to deploy the new version of PacketFront’s BECS soft-ware. The new BECS version, launched last spring, allows centralized management of virtual private networks. All 6,000 offices and workplaces in Västerås will be connected to Mälar-energi’s fiber network in a “managed portal solution,” which involves connecting the workplaces to a portal in PacketFront’s access equipment.

For the City of Västerås, working with Mälarenergi has led to reduced costs and improved administrative tools; the city has also been able to migrate to an IP telephony platform. Monica Ericsson, city manager of Västerås, says, “Having ad-ministration, politicians and citizens connected via a common

Europe Builds More Open Access Networks

INTERNaTIONaL DEPLOYMENTS

December 2008 | www.broadbandproperties.com | BROADBAND PROPERTIES | 21

infrastructure is… excellent support for our efforts to develop Västerås into a successful e-municipality.”

For Mälarenergi, the contract led to a second project to implement a similar solution for Hallsta municipality. Alf Edgren, head of technology development at Mälarenergi Metro Network, says he has also been contacted by several other mu-nicipalities that have expressed interest in the solution.

Stadtwerke Sindelfingen and Stadtwerke Boeblingen, utility companies near Stuttgart, Germany, are deploying FTTH to the 7,500 inhabitants of the new Flugfeld Böblin-

gen/Stuttgart urban development area, which the two utilities are jointly developing and marketing. The deployment will use a GPON solution from Alcatel-Lucent that supports triple-play services with bandwidths of up to 100 Mbps.

Alcatel-Lucent’s Triple Play Service Delivery Architecture (TPSDA) permits services to be delivered by multiple service providers; the first partner selected to provide Internet, voice and TV services is VSE NET, located in Saarbrücken. This will be the first open access fiber network in Germany, although the model is common in Scandinavia and elsewhere in Europe.

NetherlandsGermany

Switzerland

Italy

CaymanIslands

Sweden

China

India

UnitedKingdom

Alaska

States with fresh deployment activity.

International deployment activity.

DEPlOyEr SPOTliGhT

norTH aMerICan TeLCoSAlbany Mutual Telephone . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . www.albanytel.comFiberNet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . www.wvfibernet.netHancock Telecom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . www.teamhancock.comGVTC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . www.gvtc.comNTS Communications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . www.ntscom.comPAXIO . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . www.paxio.comPembroke Telephone Company . . . . . . . . . . . www.pemtelco.comSiren Telephone . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . www.sirentel.comSureWest Communications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . www.surewest.comSurry Telephone . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . www.surry.netTelephone Electronics Corporation (TEC) . . . . . . . . www.tec.comVerizon Communications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . www.verizon.com

oTHer norTH aMerICan depLoYerSCityLink Fiber Holdings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .www.citylinkfiber.comCity of Monticello, MN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . www.monticellofiber.comCity of Salisbury, NC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .www.salisburync.govConnexion Technologies . . . . .www.connexiontechnologies.netECFiber . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .www.ecfiber.netEPB (Chattanooga, TN) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . www.epb.net/fiberUTOPIA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . www.utopianet.org

InTernaTIonaL depLoYerSChina Mobile Corp. . . . . . . www.chinamobile.com/en/mainlandFibreSpeed Wales . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . fibrespeed.netserve.co.ukKPN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . www.kpn.com/corporate/en.htmMälarenergi Metro Network . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . malarnetcity.seMTNL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . www.mtnl.net.inReggefiber . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . www.reggefiber.nlStadtwerke Boeblingen . . . . . . www.boeblingen.de/Wirtschaft/ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Stadtwerke_BoeblingenStadtwerke Sindelfingen . . . .www.stadtwerke-sindelfingen.deSwisscom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .en.swisscom.chTelecom Italia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . www.telecomitalia.comWestTel Limited . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . westtel.ky

22 | BROADBAND PROPERTIES | www.broadbandproperties.com | December 2008

“This fiber-to-the-home deployment is a milestone for us in two ways,” says Karl-Peter Hoffmann, managing director of Stadtwerke Sindelfingen. “First, the open architecture and business model helps us to offer communications services with-out having to invest in telecoms know-how – as this is provided by the respective service providers. And second, we are build-ing a future-ready communications infrastructure that enables bandwidths of more than 100 Mbps which can easily accom-modate increased demands for video and multimedia traffic in the years to come.”

“Fiber-based infrastructure also supports a city’s market-ing efforts, as inhabitants are attracted by advanced services,” says Alf Henryk Wulf, deputy chairman of the management board of Alcatel-Lucent in Germany, citing Ernst & Young’s “Standort Deutschland 2008” study, which found the quality of telecom infrastructure to be in the top three criteria for busi-nesses choosing a site.

Alcatel-Lucent, the leader in the GPON market since 4Q 2007, will provide its 7342 Intelligent Services Access Manager Fiber to the User (ISAM FTTU) system, 7450 Ethernet Service Switch, operational support software packages VitalSuite AAA and NetAdmin, and an RF overlay system for video. Alcatel-Lucent will also be responsible for the project management, deployment of its systems and maintenance as well as the ap-plication and software integration.

Dutch incumbent KPN and fiber provider Reggefiber, which have teamed up on fiber-to-the-home projects in the past, have announced a joint venture to roll out FTTH na-tionally – just not yet. The two companies have submitted a proposal to the Dutch regulatory authority requesting approval of the proposed joint venture, but KPN says it “does not yet have the intention to roll out FTTH on a large scale in the Netherlands.” KPN is proceeding with FTTH pilots in five Dutch cities, and the two companies will conduct a commer-cial evaluation in the first half of 2009.

Telecom Italia has launched a pilot fiber-to-the-home project, according to the Italian press. The company is offer-ing services, including IPTV and 100 Mbps Internet access, under the brand name “Alicefibra.” Commercial deployment is expected in 2009.

WestTel Limited broke ground last month on a $15 mil-lion, seven-year project to deliver fiber to the premises to the entire Caribbean island of Grand Cayman (about 78 square miles and 15,000 households). WestTel is the broadband af-filiate of cable TV provider WestStar TV. The first phase of the FTTP project is focused on delivering fiber optic infra-structure to corporations; in the second phase, triple play ser-vices will be deployed to residences along the upscale West Bay Road. Phases 3 through 7 will bring coverage to the rest of the island.

WestTel CEO Mike Edenholm says, “With the fiber roll-out, we are able to raise the standard of telecommunications in Grand Cayman, offering faster and more reliable data and voice services at affordable prices.” Technical Project Manager Pauline Biron adds, “We are rolling out fiber to corporations first because they demand super-high-speed data and voice ser-

vices, particularly in the financial sector, which depends heav-ily on communications networks to conduct business.”

Indian telecom company MTNL, a public/private enter-prise, has launched the first FTTH service in India – includ-ing high-definition TV and high-speed Internet access – using equipment from fiber cable supplier Aksh Optifibre. MTNL put in a fiber backbone about three years ago, but did not begin upgrading the first mile to fiber until recently. The company says it is now working with technology partners to bring fiber-based solutions to all homes in its service area, which includes Delhi and Mumbai.

MTNL also participated with another fiber cable pro-vider, Sterlite Technologies, to showcase a “Sterlite Fiber Pow-ered Home” in a model apartment in a new development in Mumbai. The Fiber Powered Home offers applications includ-ing videoconferencing, video surveillance, video-on-demand, VoIP, high-speed gaming, online file sharing, and IPTV. Ster-lite CEO Anand Agarwal calls the Fiber Powered Home “a paradigm shift towards offering a suite of high-speed multiplay applications which run in parallel over a high-speed network, with a unique network design and application portfolio created by Sterlite.” Sterlite developed this application portfolio and network over the last four years.

Chinese news source Interfax reports that China Mobile Corp. is running a trial of fiber to the premises in China’s east-ern Jiangsu Province and southern Guangdong Province, and may begin constructing a national fiber network next year. The wireless company, trying to meet government expectations for fixed-mobile convergence services, is shoring up its weak wire-line business by building out several FTTP networks in the major cities of Jiangsu and Guangdong provinces – two of the most prosperous parts of China. The GePON networks, using equipment from Chinese vendor Fiberhome, will offer services to upscale office buildings and VIP customers. BBp

VENDOr SPOTliGhTADTRAN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . www.adtran.comAdvanced Media Technologies . . . . . . . . . .www.amt.comAksh Optifibre . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .www.akshoptifibre.comAlcatel-Lucent . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . www.alcatel-lucent.comAllied Telesis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . www.alliedtelesis.comBigBand Networks . . . . . . . . www.bigbandnetworks.comBT Conferencing . . . . . . . . . . . . www.conferencing.bt.comCisco Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . www.cisco.comEMBARQ Logistics . . . . . . . . . . . www.embarqlogistics.comEnablence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . www.enablence.comFiberhome . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . www.fiberhomegroup.comIP-PRIME . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . www.ip-prime.tvMetaSwitch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . www.metaswitch.comOFS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .www.ofsoptics.comPacketFront . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . www.packetfront.comRGB Networks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . www.rgbnetworks.comSterlite Technologies . . . . www.sterlitetechnologies.comTeraSpan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . www.teraspan.com