RST Global Communications chooses WDM-PON gear from Transmode

Optical transport systems vendor Transmode says that North Carolina alternative operator RST Global Communications LLC has begun to deploy the optical systems company’s iWDM-PON equipment. RST will use the gear, part of Transmode’s iAccess portfolio, to support Carrier Ethernet 2.0 services provision.

RST has built a fiber-optic network designed to serve the high-bandwidth needs of underserved areas in North Carolina (see "RST Global Communications plans to light up the Carolinas" and "RST Fiber lights up America’s first 'Gigabit State'"). Headquartered in Cleveland County, NC, the operator will first deploy the WDM-PON equipment to support services to commercial businesses in the Ballantyne area in South Charlotte, NC.

"As we continue to ensure the highest speed connectivity for our customers, we strive for excellence in all areas of service provision. With Transmode's TM-Series and iWDM-PON, we have been able to guarantee quality of service and future-proof our network," said Dan Limerick, president and co-founder of RST. "By delivering individual future-proofed wavelengths to all business subscribers we are also providing better security with enhanced operational control, and iWDM-PON gives us 4X the capacity of 10G-EPON without any bandwidth restrictions due to shared bandwidth."

Transmode will supply various elements of the iAccess line for the deployment. In a typical scenario, these will include network interface devices (NIDs) located at the customer premise that will act as a virtual port for the Transmode Ethernet Muxponder located in RST's local office. RST will be able to enjoy automated service provisioning, says Transmode, via which the operator can scale services up to 100 Gbps.

"It's a significant moment for WDM-PON technology to be announcing RST as a new iWDM-PON customer,” said Sten Nordell, Transmode's CTO. “The technology has undertaken a long evolution within the industry to reach its current form based on pluggable optics that can be supported in Transmode or third-party devices. The technology is now gaining market acceptance through these deployments and numerous others as well as trials, and iWDM-PON continues to evolve to support a broader range of applications such as mobile fronthaul. So the technology has a bright future within optical access networks."

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