Shawnee Telephone adopts Ribbon's NPT IP routing platform for broadband aggregation

Rural provider leverages the vendor’s network staging services and high-touch post-sales support.

Shawnee Communications, an independent telco that serves residents and businesses in rural Southern and Central Illinois communities, has selected Ribbon's NPT IP Routing solution for broadband aggregation.

Broadband has been a clear priority for Shawnee. 2018 the provider was among the top 100 winners of the FCC’s America Fund Phase II (CAF II) auction. The auction distributed around $1.5 billion to telecommunications companies so they could deploy services to rural areas.

Shawnee Communications exchanges are Cave-In-Rock, Eddyville, Elim Springs, Elizabethtown, Equality, Golconda, Goreville, Hammond, Herod, Hicks, Lake of Egypt, Leamington, Renshaw, Ridgway, Rosiclare, Simpson and Lovington and Vienna. The service provider currently offers a mix of fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) and broadband wireless in various Central Illinois markets, offering two main speed tiers: 100 and 500 Mbps.

With their modular design, chassis redundancy, and support for multiple routing technologies, Ribbon's IP routers deliver resiliency and traffic protection while eliminating the need for duplicate devices at each site.

Ribbon and Shawnee already had a long-standing relationship. "Ribbon has been a trusted partner for many years, supporting us with voice solutions, and leveraging their expertise for broadband aggregation was a natural fit," said Ben McCameron, General Manager for Shawnee Communications. "Their US-based post-sales support and network staging services offer additional peace of mind as we focus on providing our customers with the high speed, resilient capacity our increasingly digital environments demand."

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About the Author

Sean Buckley

Sean Buckley

Sean is the Editor-in-Chief of Lightwave. He establishes and executes Lightwave's editorial strategy across its website, email newsletters, events, and other information products. Before coming to Lightwave in July 2023, he served as editor of Broadband Communities. Earlier, he served as senior editor of FierceTelecom and the editor of the former Telecommunications Magazine. He got his start in the optical industry in 1998 when he became the editor of enterprise and optical networks at Information Gatekeepers. He has a BA in English from the University of Massachusetts, Boston, and lives in Dracut, Mass, with his wife, two sons, and his cat, Dove. 

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