Scatter Creek enhances rural reach with XKL’s DWDM platform

As Washington-based rural ISP Scatter Creek Infonet looked to meet the increase in broadband demand, it found its needs surpassed its existing optical system, so it turned to XKL.

After experiencing a significant increase in demand and exceeding the bandwidth of its existing equipment, Scatter Creek needed an advanced, cost-efficient solution to expand capabilities while eliminating outage and downtime issues.

XKL crafted what it said is a tailor-made proposal for a FOADM (Fixed Optical Add Drop Multiplexer) solution that offered Scatter Creek previously untapped opportunities. Through their greenfield DWDM network investment, Scatter Creek simplified network management while significantly reducing expenses.

A tailored solution

XKL supplies Scatter Creek with a DWDM network solution with 100G/400G transport capabilities. The optical supplier’s advanced network solutions can help the ISP deliver reliable connectivity across surrounding rural communities.

Brian Van Mondfrans, IT Manager at Scatter Creek, noted that while various optical networking options exist, most aren’t suitable. However, XKL was able to present the rural ISP with a platform and plan that fit their needs.

“XKL took the time to listen to our goals and draw on their expertise to show us a different way of proceeding,” notes Mondfrans. “The result of our collaboration with XKL is that we don’t need to pay for additional software or GUIs with unneeded features and associated subscription fees, and we weren’t pushed to add more ports or interface cards than we needed.”

Enabling cost efficiencies

For rural providers like Scatter Creek, balancing cost-efficiency and technical excellence is a priority, making tailored network solutions a priority.

When it works with customers, XKL prioritizes hands-on support to explain, build, and deploy network solutions that offer exactly what the customer requires.

Also, because XKL eliminates unnecessary or extraneous network capabilities, it ensures customers get the best DWDM results on time and on budget with no licensing fees. Provisioning a streamlined, user-friendly network allowed Scatter Creek to manage its own backhaul, creating further financial and operational efficiencies.

Rick Vitzthum, Scatter Creek's CFO, said that by leveraging XKL’s platform, it reduced its operational costs by 40%.

“By reducing operational complexity and averting huge network expenses, we’re more agile and flexible for our customers’ futures and can support other regional ISPs and partners as we build this connectivity fabric,” he said. “With other network providers, we struggled to find the size of solution we needed, and some would have made us pay tens of thousands annually for just a graphic user interface.”

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