CLEC News Briefs

• Not Rain, Nor Sleet, Nor Hurricane?
• Alopa Opts Out With The Old, In With The New
• Tango All the Rage in Asia and Europe

by ISP-Planet Staff [October 3, 2002]

Not Rain, Nor Sleet, Nor Hurricane?
Kaplan Telephone Co. Inc. (KTC) tapped Occam Networks Inc. for its broadband loop carrier (BLC) system to deliver high-speed data services to rural customers.

Headquartered in Kaplan, La., KTC has been serving South Central Louisiana since 1952. The independent telephone recently completed a successful two-month trial of several BLC units, resulting in deployment plans for rural areas currently served by remote terminals.

Carl A. Turnley, KTC vice president. Said Occam's BLC system won them over when it stood up to extreme weather conditions in its rural service area.

"The weather conditions can be quite challenging here in our part of Louisiana," Turnley said. "It has been our experience that not all 'hardened' equipment can survive deployments in remote terminals where there is extreme heat and humidity. The Occam BLCs not only survived our summer, they gave us a quick and easy path for providing broadband services to subscribers that are served from remote terminals."

Turnley added that Occam Network's BLC gear provided the best pay back model over other well-known DSLAM equipment makers systems. As a result of the BLCs' outstanding price-performance equation, KTC was able to deploy more equipment than was previously possible with the traditional DSLAM deployment model. Consequently, KTC was able to deliver high-speed data services to areas where it was not previously cost efficient.

Russ Sharer, Occam Networks vice president of marketing, said an increasing number of small carriers with Central Office-based DSLAMs are seeking alternative vendors for remote DSL equipment after reviewing the price-performance equation.

"Placing Occam's BLC systems in remote terminals immediately provided KTC with a lot of opportunities to deliver revenue-generating high-speed data services that weren't previously possible," Sharer said.

The Occam equipment permitted KTC to start competing quickly and effectively for new customers against a well-established cable company's hybrid fiber coax offering. The Occam Network BLC system allowed KTC to easily and economically expand its DSL coverage while also supporting basic voice services.

Based in Santa Barbara, Calif., Occam Networks is an Ethernet and IP-based loop carrier equipment maker that sells its gear to telecom companies worldwide. Its suite of broadband loop carrier platforms enables telecommunications service providers to profitably deliver a variety of traditional and packetized voice and broadband from a single, converged, all-IP network.

The flagship product, the BLC 1200, is a 24 port ADSL and POTS system with a 4xT1/E1 or optional fiber-optic Ethernet network uplink. It's a flexible, scalable, and cost-effective solution. The compact item only takes up one rack unit with a sleek 1.75-inch profile. Its environmentally hardened chassis makes the BLC 1200 an ideal solution for deployment in smaller remote terminals (RTs) or cabinets.

The BLC 1200 upgrades existing narrowband local loops to a converged broadband access network. It is one solution for carriers seeking to provide ubiquitous DSL service, especially from remote terminals. A single BLC 1200 unit, the heart of Occam Networks' Broadband loop carrier solution, starts at around $9,600.

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Alopa Opts Out With The Old, In With The New
Alopa Networks, Inc. picked up a new worldwide distributor in ARRIS, Inc. this week that expands its global sales and support services. Meanwhile, the Sunnyvale, Calif-based broadband subscriber solutions provider replaced its CPS 2000 (the old) with its latest primary software solution, Alopa MetaServ (the new).

Under the terms of the strategic agreement, ARRIS will resell Alopa's complete operational support systems (OSS) broadband service providers (BSPs), including service activation, service and business workflows, Internet protocol (IP) provisioning technologies, and client qualification for voice, data, and video to its global network of subscribers.

As part of the deal, ARRIS will also provide frontline support for Alopa's MetaServ platform and system integration for major deployments, creating an established worldwide sales and support channel for Alopa.

The partnership leverages both companies' leadership in data and telephony solutions, enabling operators to expand their subscriber base and build new revenue streams by confidently deploying advanced carrier grade services such as tiered data and Telephony over IP, the ARRIS carrier-grade voice service.

Peter Szalay, Alopa vice president of marketing and business development, said that ARRIS has the infrastructure, skills, and expertise to sell and support its product throughout the world.

"The ARRIS frontline support expands our operational reach and their global sales and field engineering team is an asset that provides Alopa with a significant competitive advantage" Szalay said.

Stan Brovont, ARRIS broadband division vice president of marketing, said the deal creates synergies for its customers that are deploying high speed data, PacketCable, and video services.

"This partnership adds to our portfolio of products and services designed to accelerate cable operators into these new businesses at the highest operating margins possible," Brovont said.

ARRIS provides broadband local access networks with innovative optical transport, high-speed data, and telephony systems for the delivery of voice, video, and data to homes and businesses. Headquartered in Duluth, Ga., the company manages design, engineering, manufacturing, distribution, service, and sales office locations throughout the world.

Alopa Networks, Inc. is a recognized pioneer in the design and development of operational support systems for BSPs. The Company's flagship produce, the Alopa MetaServ Provisioning Platform, delivers a broad range of subscriber services that automates provisioning and service delivery systems.

Alopa MetaServ creates an organized transition of key systems that enables the growth of new revenue streams. It's a low-cost migration strategy for multiple service operators (MSO's) that plan to switch from legacy OSS systems to multi-service OSS platforms in order to provide tiered voice, video and data services on a per subscriber basis.

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Tango All the Rage in Asia and Europe
Efficient Networks Inc. took its tango Access software overseas last month dubbed International Edition. The Siemens Corp. subsidiary reports that its broadband connectivity solution has struck a chord in Asia and Europe and a trio of telecom companies have signed its dance card.

According to Efficient Networks, overseas telecom companies have stepped out with tango Access because of the software's ability to simplify the process of provisioning communications services over nearly any type of broadband network—be it DSL, cable or wireless systems. Terilogy, one of the largest telecom systems integrators in Japan, ordered 1.5 million licenses for Efficient's tango Access the software. Takao Tsubuki of Terilogy said tango Access enables subscribers to connect to its broadband networks seamlessly.

"But equally important is the fact that the software supports dynamic routing and multiple sessions that let providers increase the profitability of their broadband offerings with new services," Tsubuki added.

Established in 1997, Hanaro Telecom, Inc. is a Korean broadband Internet access and local call service provider. Licensed as a competitive local exchange carrier (CLEC), Hanaro introduced asymmetric digital subscriber line (ADSL) services to five major Korean cities on April 1, 1999. Today, the company also provides cable modem services along with its DSL offering—primarily targeting large-sized apartment complexes and commercial buildings in densely populated metropolitan areas.

Hanaro is licensing Efficient Network's Tango Access software because it could easily be branded to appear as if it were the company's own offering. In addition, the software could be deployed, out-of-the-box, in the Korean language.

Meanwhile, East European tango Access fans include Slovak Telecom. This service provider will be relying on tango Access for rolling out a new broadband offering. Slovak Telecom is anticipating signing up as many as 30,000 new subscribers by the end of 2003.

Sundar Raj, Efficient Networks vice president of access software, said that acquiring new customers for such a recently introduced product clearly indicates that tango Access delivers reliable broadband access to the international community.

The line up of new licensees also indicates that European and Asian carriers are ahead of U.S. firms when it comes to finding financial sold ground in the global telecom marketplace.

—End

   

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