March 30, 2004 Richardson, TX--The Rural Utilities Service (RUS) Technical Standards Committee has accepted White Rock Networks' VLX2020 SONET platform for inclusion in the RUS List of Materials. The RUS acceptance includes RUS Buy American Status for White Rock's VLX2020 product family, including the VLX1010 WDM system, enabling America's rural telecommunications service providers to obtain low-interest funds to deploy the VLX2020 for voice, data, and video applications over OC-3, OC-12, OC-48, and OC-192 survivable SONET networks.
Rural telephone companies require flexible solutions that can support multiple services but at a minimum cost. The SONET platform's distinctive building-block architecture allows rural carriers to pick-and-choose VLX2020 modules that are service-optimized for a particular customer area. This flexibility reduces carriers' hardware requirements, in addition to lowering space, power and environmental conditioning costs, resulting in significant capex and opex savings.
The SONET platform integrates a full range of features into a highly compact package including DCS features as well as Ethernet over SONET transport which allows the VLX2020 to be used not only for conventional transport applications but also for Ethernet delivery, video on demand, and small office crossconnect applications. This design allows rural carriers to decrease the cost of network operations while offering a broader range of services to their customers.
White Rock also provides a unique network management solution for rural carriers. The VLXpert PC Element Management System enables the full set of management capabilities provided by the Unix-based VLXpert platform, but VLXpert PC is designed to manage smaller networks and at a much lower cost because VLXpert PC operates on a desktop or laptop PC.
"The VLX2020 now makes it even easier for carriers to bring advanced communications services to rural locations," said Lonnie Martin, founder and chief executive of White Rock Networks. "Gaining RUS acceptance is another step in White Rock's goal to save carriers capex and opex dollars in building their transport networks."
The VLX2020 allows carriers to support a wide range of services from OC-192 to DS-1 including Fast and Gigabit Ethernet. It is the industry's smallest OC-48/192 SONET platform, according to the company. All White Rock products are designed and manufactured in Texas.