April 24, 2006 London -- The Columbia Mountain Open Network (CMON), a non-profit organization, expanded its community broadband system in British Columbia, Canada using PacketFront's FTTH and broadband aggregation technology. The company's BECS FTTH control and provisioning system will allow CMON to offer broadband services to the rural community of Trail, as well as to the five band locations of the Ktunaxa First Nation.
"While both the city and the tribal council are looking to use broadband to improve quality of life for their residents, each has different priorities," comments Dan McCarthy, CEO of CMON. "Community leaders in Trail have chosen to deploy this advanced telecommunications infrastructure to attract inward investment and retain residents and businesses within their communities. The Ktunaxa, on the other hand, are planning to provide essential community-based services including healthcare and education to its widely dispersed community. It will also use the network to create an accessible platform for the local language, ensuring that it is preserved in the wider community."
Relying on PacketFront's hardware and software platform, CMON says it has worked diligently to attract third-party service providers that will provide residents and businesses of both initiatives with the ability to self-provision their telephony, video, and Internet services.
"In a PacketFront network, when users turn on a PC or a TV connected to the network they are taken to the local community portal," explains Matt Wenger, area director, Americas, PacketFront. "Here they see a list of all the service providers that are competing to sell services on the network, and the various services these providers are offering. Residents and businesses then pick and click the services they want, when they want them, with everything in the process automated."