March 26, 2004 Foxboro, MA -- Telco Systems, a BATM company, announced that its EdgeGate CPE 282 IP media gateway -- which provides broadband Internet access, Internet phone service (VoIP), broadcast video, and video-on-demand to the consumer's home over fiber -- was accepted for use in fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) projects funded by the United States Department of Agriculture's Rural Utilities Service (RUS) following review by the RUS Technical Committee for telecommunications products.
With the RUS technical review and official acceptance, rural communities that can use the gateway when deploying community broadband networks utilizing RUS loans and grants.
Late last year, Agriculture Secretary Ann M. Veneman announced that $11.3 million in broadband community grants were awarded to 34 communities in 20 states. The grants were made following a national competition to applicants proposing to provide broadband transmission service on a "community-oriented connectivity" basis. The grants are for rural, economically challenged communities and offers a means for the deployment of broadband transmission services to rural schools, libraries, education centers, health care providers, law enforcement agencies, public safety organizations, and residents and businesses. The grant program supplements USDA Rural Development's standard high-speed telecommunications loan program.
The EdgeGate CPE 282 is currently being used in the nation's largest Ethernet-based FTTH deployment in the Grant County public utility district in Washington state. The system is also being used in FTTH networks serving the Washington state counties of Whatcom, Douglass, and Clallam.
The Telco Systems IP media gateway enables service providers to offer FTTH or fiber-to-the-business networks for converged VoIP Internet voice service, video, data, and broadband Internet access over a single fiber pair to the end user at their home or office. The gateway is an Ethernet-based switch with two voice ports and up to eight high-speed Ethernet ports for video, data, and broadband Internet access.