JDS Uniphase (JDSU-San Jose, CA) agreed to acquire privately held test and measurement company Acterna (Germantown, MD) for $760 million. JDSU expects the acquisition to accelerate its path to profitability, while allowing it to enter the market for triple play testing. With about 1,770 employees worldwide, Acterna will now become JDSU’s Communications T&M Group.
The city of Windom, MN, unveiled its $8.6-million, municipally owned “Windomnet” broadband network, which uses the ADC (Minneapolis) OmniReach FTTX infrastructure platform.
Mahaska Communications Group (Oskaloosa, IA) selected the Fiber Optic Network Solutions (FONS-Marlborough, MA) Pathways platform to deliver FTTP services to the college community of Oskaloosa. The company’s Fiber Distribution Hubs will facilitate service connections and provide a primary convergence point for locating optical splitters among the provider’s outside plant locations.
Mahi Networks (Petaluma, CA) chose the Ample Communications (Fremont, CA) Harrier-24 triple-speed Ethernet MAC device for use in Mahi’s Ethernet over SONET products. Mahi expects the device to enable system deployments at greater distances, while minimizing packet loss.
Draka Comteq (Claremont, NC) announced plans to restart operations at its North American optical-fiber manufacturing facility during the third quarter. The company says the move comes in response to growing demand for its optical cables and fibers.
IP Networks (San Francisco), a facilities-based CLEC, selected the Metrobility (Merrimack, NH) Radiance E-Services platform to offer managed metro Ethernet services to enterprises in the San Francisco Bay area. The carrier says it will incorporate the platform into its fiber-optic network to provision and manage last mile Ethernet services for data centers, remote offices, and carrier points of presence.
ECI Telecom (Petach-Tikva, Israel) agreed to acquire Laurel Networks (Pittsburgh). ECI will pay $88 million in cash for Laurel; upon closing, Laurel will become ECI’s Data Networking Division. ECI says that Laurel’s products and technology will add edge routing and IP service capabilities to ECI’s broadband, optical, and core routing portfolio.
Independent telephone operator Stratford Mutual Telephone (Stratford, IA) selected the Zhone Technologies (Oakland) FiberSLAM optical line terminal and ZRG 850 PON residential gateway platform to deliver triple play broadband services within the operator’s coverage area. The operator will also employ the company’s ZMS provisioning and management system.
Wave7 Optics (Atlanta) and Road 9 (Denver) have teamed to provide FTTP infrastructure at the Villages of Loreto Bay, a $2.2-billion development near the town of Loreto, Mexico, on the Baja peninsula. Road 9 selected Wave7’s Last Mile Link PON platform to distribute triple play broadband services to the resort community’s residents and tenants. RedIP Mexico (Mexico City) is managing system integration for the project. The deployment is expected to eventually connect 5,000 homes and 2,000 hotel rooms.
Norlight Telecommunications (Milwaukee) announced plans to expand its 3,800-mi network by activating optical fibers along the central Illinois corridor to improve access for its wholesale customers. The expansion will establish network points of presence in Peoria, Bloomington, Champaign, and Danville, IL. Completion of the 347-mi expansion is scheduled for the fourth quarter.
Project Mutual Telephone Co-op (PMT-Rupert, ID) selected the Optical Solutions FiberPath 500 GPON system to deliver voice, video, and data services to Twin Falls, ID.
Terawave (Hayward, CA) and Fujitsu Telecommunications Europe (Birmingham, England) entered into a strategic partnership agreement to develop and market PON access platforms. The companies say the agreement combines Fujitsu’s market share in broadband access technology with Terawave’s PON technology to create a range of integrated managed products for GPON access.
Time Warner Telecom (Littleton, CO) installed Ethernet native LAN services for regional health care organization ProHealth Care at six locations throughout Waukesha County, WI. To implement the services, the provider also expanded its fiber presence into the cities of Oconomowoc and Mukwonago, offering fiber-based facility services for voice and high-speed data networking applications.
BellSouth (Atlanta) linked the St. Landry Parish school district of Opelousas, LA, with a fiber-optic network. The carrier installed a 100-Mbit/sec circuit at each of 34 school locations as well as two Gigabit Ethernet circuits at the district’s office. The carrier also announced that it is providing 600 mi of fiber infrastructure to link the medical facilities of Baptist Health, a health care system based in Jacksonville, FL, across a five-county area spanning northeast Florida and southern Georgia. The infrastructure consists of a fiber ring with paths to all the system’s hospital locations.
Scientific-Atlanta (Atlanta) and Tropic Networks (Ottawa, Ontario) announced that they will provide Time Warner Cable’s Portland, ME, division with ROADM transport nodes for the division’s core DWDM network and related support services. Time Warner Portland is to purchase Scientific-Atlanta’s WT-24000 optical transport platform as well as Tropic’s TROPX software suite and Wavelength Tracker optical layer management technology.
TCT West (Basin, WY), provider of broadband services to rural Wyoming communities, selected the ETI (Norcross, GA) Triad platform to automate software provisioning of FTTP services. Prior to selecting the platform, the provider used the company’s CableBridge system to provision subscriber video services.
Broadweave Networks (Lehi, UT) selected the Telco Systems (Foxboro, MA) active Ethernet products for an FTTH network deployment in a development of 8,000 homes and 4.5 million sq ft of commercial space currently under construction in Utah. The deployment will provide primary-line voice over IP, IP video, and broadband Internet services at speeds up to 1 Gbit/sec. Telco’s EdgeGate CPE IP gateway product line and T5 Compact IP Ethernet aggregation switch will form the network’s backbone.
Front Range Internet (Fort Collins, CO) selected the World Wide Packets (Spokane Valley, WA) LightningEdge Ethernet platform to enable Internet access, Web hosting, and hosted application services. The provider is implementing the business class services using an existing fiber ring, also supported by the company, which provides video surveillance and other applications in Fort Collins.
BT (London) announced its selection of preferred suppliers for its all-IP 21st Century Network (21CN) network transformation program. The carrier expects to invest up to £10 billion in the program over the next five years. Fujitsu (Tokyo) and Huawei (Shenzhen) were selected to supply multiservice access node aggregation equipment. Alcatel (Paris), Cisco Systems (San Jose, CA), and Siemens (Frankfurt, Germany) were selected to supply the network’s metro nodes. Cisco, Lucent Technologies (Murray Hill, NJ), and Juniper Networks (Sunnyvale, CA) were selected to supply large-scale router equipment for the network’s core nodes. The Ericsson (Stockholm) softswitch was selected to supply the network’s “i-node domain,” where service execution functionality will reside. Ciena (Linthicum, MD) and Huawei were selected to supply the network’s “transmission domain,” providing optical equipment necessary to transmit high-capacity signals carried among multiservice access, metro, and core nodes. BT says the selection will allow dozens of subcontractors and investors to become involved in delivering its 21CN program. Commercial and contractual agreements related to the selections are expected to conclude this summer.
Broadcast Service Danmark (Copenhagen) contracted Net Insight (Stockholm) for the construction of a nationally sponsored digital terrestrial TV network in Denmark. With an order value above SEK 10 million, the network will employ the equipment vendor’s Nimbra platform and reach every residence in Denmark. Using optical fiber and microwave links, the platform will route TV signals from national and regional broadcasters to transmitter masts located throughout the country.
Denmark’s Mobile Operator 3 (Copenhagen) selected Transmode (Stockholm) to supply transmission equipment for its optical network. The carrier’s order includes software and hardware to support four secure network rings for backhauling SDH and Gigabit Ethernet traffic to a central network hub over two fiber pairs. The equipment will be deployed throughout Denmark.
e-net (Limerick, Ireland), the managed service entity (MSE) charged by the government of Ireland with providing broadband services to all regions of the country, purchased the Acterna (Germantown, MD) ONMS optical-network management system to monitor the quality of service of the MSE’s backbone, metro, and fiber access networks.
Alloptic (Livermore, CA) announced that Smart Telecom (Dublin), a telecom provider in Ireland, is deploying the company’s GEPON platform to provide triple play FTTP services to multidwelling units and mixed-use developments. IP-Phone Connect (Copenhagen) also selected the company’s GEPON platform to provide triple play broadband services to residential developments in Denmark.
Tiscali Italia (Rome, Italy) deployed the Nortel Networks (Ontario) optical communications infrastructure across more than 300 Italian cities to provide support for triple play broadband services, while enabling ADSL2-based access for the provider’s business and consumer customers. Key components of the deployment include the Nortel’s Optical Metro 5000 and Optical Multiservice Edge 6500 products.
According to a contract with fixed-line operator Cabletel (Sophia, Bulgaria), ZTE (Shenzhen, China) will install a 500-km DWDM network in Bulgaria. The network will connect Bulgaria with Turkey and Romania and will support 2.5- and 10-Gbit/sec transmissions.
Seikoh Giken (SG-Chiba, Japan) acquired the optical-fiber business of Seiko Instruments (SI-Chiba). Under terms of the acquisition, SG will acquire SI’s fiber-optic businesses in Japan, China, Germany, Singapore, and the United States to include manufacturing-capability products such as ferrules, connectors, polishers, polishing consumables, attenuators, and jumpers.
In contracts worth $9.3 million, Lao Telecommunications, a telecom service provider in the Lao People’s Democratic Republic, selected Alcatel (Paris) to provide optical, wireless, and broadband services platforms in a phased network expansion. For optical deployments, the company will implement its Optical Multi-Service Node system to expand the provider’s optical backbone and metro networks and its 1642 Edge Multiplexer Compact to enable enhanced connections among the optical backbone network and metro access points.
Fabrinet (San Francisco) purchased JDS Uniphase’s (San Jose, CA) manufacturing facilities in Fuzhou, China. Under the arrangement, Fabrinet acquires all assets and operations related to the Fuzhou plant, including R&D and the manufacture of products such as crystals and precision optics. Fabrinet expects to use the site’s existing core management and technical expertise to grow its optical-component business in China.
Chunghwa Telecom (CHT-Taipei) deployed the Mintera (Lowell, MA) MI-40000 platform for the service provider’s 40-Gbit/sec DWDM pilot transmission initiative. The platform is expected to allow CHT to provide 10- and 40-Gbit/sec wavelength services as an overlay to its existing 2.5-10-Gbit/sec optical line infrastructure.