Metro Roundup: MRV, Calix, PEG, Metroweb

Two interesting metro wins by vendors, a big pipe for rural Illinois, and some action over in Italy:

MRV revealed a high profile metro Ethernet deal this morning. Lightower Fiber Networks has been deploying the company’s OptiSwitch Carrier Ethernet 2.0 services to power its metro expansion in its east coast and Chicago markets. With Lightower’s completion of its purchase of Fibertech over the summer, they’ll have even more territory to roll it out to. Lightower is using a wide range of CE2.0, including multi-dimentionsal E-Line, E-Tree, and E-Access as well as ENNI capabilities.

Calix has picked up another FTTH deal, this time down in South Carolina. Home Telecom will be deploying the vendor’s PON solutions in the Nexton community outside of Charleston, which sees itself as a new model for town and community building. They foresee the fiber-connected homes on their 4500-acre region consuming some 120Gb of traffic per month on average, and see the ‘gigabit lifestyle’ as one of the key features one has to have in such a place.

PEG Bandwidth has upgraded its network out in Illinois. They announced a new 100G Ethernet deployment on a 225 mile route connecting Peoria and Chicago via Bloomington and Champaign. That brings some serious bandwidth to bear on the parts of Illinois that usually get the short end of the infrastructure stick. Not so long ago the thought of bringing 100G pipes to Peoria would have seemed crazy, but the growth out at the edge is definitely faster than what we see in the core.

And over in Italy, Telecom Italia and Metroweb are talking again. The two had been exploring a merger earlier this year, but it didn’t pan out. Now they are talking again, but this time about jointly investing in an FTTH project. Telecom Italia has been planning to invest €3 billion a year in FTTH across some 100 markets, and they certainly aren’t likely to turn down ways to reduce that price tag if the economics work out better.

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Categories: Ethernet · FTTH · Metro fiber · Telecom Equipment