AUGUST 28, 2009 -- Grant County Public Utility District (PUD) has selected Infinera (search Lightwave for Infinera) for an optical network supporting triple-play broadband services for rural areas of Grant and Douglas counties in central Washington State.
Grant County PUD is one of the few public utilities in the United States that delivers access to high-speed Internet, television, telephone, and wireless services as well as electric power to consumers and businesses. The fiber-optic service is currently available to nearly 15,000 homes, businesses, and farms in the county.
Grant PUD began building a wholesale fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) network in 2000. The first home came online during a pilot project in August of that year. At that time, Grant PUD was an underserved county and in several low-population density areas of the county there was no landline telephone service available. Today, Grant PUD has achieved a 40% take rate for homes passed who have chosen to subscribe to one or more triple-play services. Competitive carriers have also entered the market to offer triple-play services.
Grant County PUD required a system to help it achieve its goal to bring fiber to 80% of the residences and 95% of businesses served. Infinera's digital architecture, based on the company's large-scale photonic integrated circuits (PICs), enables the network to add large chunks of capacity quickly and easily. Infinera's digital reconfigurable optical add/drop multiplexer (ROADM) architecture enables the network to be reconfigured in software in response to changing traffic patterns. Traditional analog ROADMs often require manual reconfiguration or equipment changes (truck rolls) to support a new configuration.
"Grant County selected Infinera for the speed, flexibility, and ease of operation of its integrated digital switching and the digital ROADM capabilities," says Robert Bergman, telecom engineer for Grant County PUD. "Infinera allows Grant County PUD engineers to provision circuits quickly and easily, and the Infinera architecture dramatically simplifies operation of the network, requiring far fewer line cards, optical cables, and spare parts to keep on hand."
"We are pleased to be part of the visionary fiber-optic build-out taking place in central Washington," says Infinera chief executive officer Jagdeep Singh. "The flexibility, ease of operation, and cost-effectiveness of an Infinera network has helped make it possible to bring affordable broadband to residents and businesses in Grant County."
The Infinera DTN optical networking system is powered by PICs. Deployed worldwide in long-haul and metro core networks, the Infinera DTN combines high-capacity DWDM transport, integrated digital bandwidth management, and GMPLS-powered service intelligence in one platform.
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