Calix gear used by gigabit FTTH communities in 14 states

Calix Inc. (NYSE: CALX) says that more than 15 of its service provider customers have announced gigabit residential services in 14 different states, stepping to meet the Federal Communications Commission's (FCC's) Gigabit Communities Challenge.

Issued in January 2013, the FCC's Gigabit Communities Challenge called for at least one gigabit community in all 50 states by 2015 (which the FTTH Council Americas has asked the commission to extend further -- see “FTTH Council unveils Gigabit Communities Race to the Top proposal”). Calix says its FTTH technology is being used in fiber-optic networks to support gigabit services in Colorado, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Missouri, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio, Tennessee, Vermont, and Virginia. In addition, Calix customer O-NET has brought the first residential gigabit network to Canada in Olds, Alberta, and is being used by CenturyLink in that carrier’s gigabit services pilot in Nebraska (see “CenturyLink uses Calix systems in Omaha gigabit FTTH pilot”).

"We can already see the impact that gigabit networks are making in both urban and rural communities across the country through economic development, social and cultural advances, and the creation of advanced broadband applications," said Heather Gold, president of the FTTH Council Americas. "We commend Calix and its customers in driving towards the goals of the FCC, and see them as key allies and catalysts to the FTTH Council as it works with the FCC on the Race to the Top proposal to help fund gigabit deployments in the United States."

Calix says its Unified Access portfolio boasts a number of innovations that enable the efficient delivery of gigabit services in both high- and low-density environments. The Calix 700GE and 800GE families of optical network terminals (ONTs) and residential services gateways (RSGs) support 1-Gbps symmetrical speeds. With its auto-detect technology, Calix equipment can deliver gigabit speeds over both point-to-point Gigabit Ethernet and GPON. Calix notes that its access systems also support critical gigabit service-enabling features such as dynamic bandwidth allocation over GPON.

"With a major university nearby and bandwidth usage on the rise across our subscriber base, it is essential to deliver the most advanced broadband speeds to our customers," said Smithville president and CEO Darby McCarty. Smithville, a longstanding customer of Calix, has enabled what they believe to be the fastest Internet speeds in Indiana and the state's first gigabit community (see “Smithville selects Calix for broadband stimulus initiative”).

"In the past year, we have seen a growing number of our service provider customers across the country, from large ILECs and rural cooperatives to utility companies and municipalities, begin to offer gigabit services to residential subscribers," said John Colvin, Calix senior vice president of North American sales and marketing. "These networks are not only transforming communities, but providing our customers with a competitive advantage over all other broadband offerings in their market. We are excited to be a key enabler of the FCC's Gigabit Communities Challenge, and anticipate that many more of our customers will be taking the gigabit leap in the next 12 months."

For more information on FTTx/access systems and suppliers, visit the Lightwave Buyer’s Guide.