Three members of the Midwest Tel Net consortium -- Hillsboro Telephone Co. Inc., LaValle Telephone Cooperative and Richland-Grant Telephone Cooperative -- have selected Occam Networks Inc.’s BLC 6000 platform to deliver voice, video and high-speed data to the companies’ rural residential and small business subscribers.
Hillsboro Telephone Co. was the first local carrier in Wisconsin to select and deploy the BLC 6000 platform, a complete loop carrier system using Ethernet and IP as core transport and service protocols. Today, Hillsboro has five different types of loop carriers in its network. Over the next year and a half the carrier will replace these with the BLC 6000s, installing multiple platforms at each site. To date, Hillsboro has installed the BLC in central office and remote office locations and is delivering voice, data and video to its subscribers.
“Our goal in moving to a single platform was for every line to be a high-speed line that could deliver data and video, as well as voice,” says Don Hammer, plant supervisor for Hillsboro. “We considered products from several different vendors, but the Occam BLC was the only platform that truly provided us with the ability to deliver triple play services. Its seamless transport mechanism with its gigabit Ethernet bonding also provides us with an upgrade path as demand for new services grows.”
LaValle Telephone Cooperative plans to provide all its subscribers with advanced broadband services by the end of 2005. The carrier will provide traditional voice service, DSL service and video, as well as position itself to deliver voice over IP. Over the next 18 months, LaValle will install the BLC 6000 in two CO exchanges and 10 remote sites. In mid-April it will begin delivering triple play services.
Richland-Grant Telephone Cooperative plans to install the BLC 6000 in five COs and 23 remotes, using the central office BLCs as DSLAMs to feed the remotes. It expects to install the BLCs in 14 remotes this year and to complete the project by the end of 2005. With the completion, Richland-Grant will provide all its 3,000 subscribers with advanced broadband services.
“I strongly believe that Ethernet and IP are the future of telecommunications,” says Dave Lull, general manager for LaValle and Richland-Grant. “These technologies make the BLC 6000 much easier to install, configure and manage than other loop carrier solutions. They provide us with a greater flexibility that saves us time, and every minute we save has a dollar value.”
