Poka Lambro Telecommunications (Poka Lambro) is upping its middle mile network prospects.
Leveraging ReConnect Program funding, the West Texas-based rural telco has deployed Infinera’s XTM Series to upgrade its regional fiber broadband and middle-mile network across rural western Texas.
Using Infinera’s solution, Poka Lambro can deliver 400G services across the region to provide middle-mile connectivity to support its fiber broadband transport needs and those of other internet service providers (ISPs) and connect historically underserved communities.
Poka Lambro can increase its network capacity and expand its service area, ensuring that it and other regional ISPs can provide vital services to support remote working, telemedicine, and high-speed internet connectivity in previously unconnected rural regions.
A vibrant market
Several things make the area Poka Lambro serves unique.
The service provider serves an area of 4,200 square miles in West Texas. Its service area extends from primarily south of Lubbock, Texas, in the lower panhandle, to just north of Midland in the oil-rich Permian Basin. This area is one of Texas’ most prolific agribusiness regions, with cotton, grapes, peanuts, ranchland, and petroleum exploration and production.
The Infinera solution was delivered with t3 Broadband, a rural broadband network implementation service provider.
“Working closely with t3 Broadband on the network design and Infinera to deliver the best-in-class solution, our network upgrade provides our neighboring co-operatives a modern middle-mile network option that can cost-effectively scale to meet the bandwidth demands of today and the future,” said Scott Fitzgerald, Vice President, Network Operations at Poka Lambro Telecommunications.
Calling for middle-mile funding
As service providers look to extend service to more rural areas, the demand for a middle-mile network continues to rise.
As Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Communications and Information and NTIA Administrator Alan Davidson describes it, the middle mile network is the "interstate highways of the Internet, carrying large amounts of data at high speeds to connect entire communities."
While the ReConnect program intends to bring broadband service to rural residences and businesses, NTIA said that middle-mile facilities are eligible for funding if necessary to get sufficient broadband service to all premises in the Proposed Funded Service Area.
NTIA’s Middle Mile Grant Program provides funding for expanding and extending middle-mile infrastructure across U.S. states and territories. In total, the program allocated $980 million to fund projects for the construction, improvement, or acquisition of middle-mile infrastructure covering more than 370 counties across 40 states and Puerto Rico.
Poka Lambro is among several rural area service providers that have received funding for middle mile networks.
Zayo, a major proponent of middle mile network funding, broke ground on a $24 million Internet grant project in Reno, Nevada in June.
With the NTIA grant, Zayo will build a 645-mile fiber network through the Panther Valley and Reno communities in Nevada, as well as rural parts of Oregon and northern California that currently have inadequate broadband service. Zayo will build 23 access points in this network to enable ready access to local Internet Service Providers, which will vastly improve the speed and quality of Internet service to homes in the area.
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