Eagle Broadband teams with IBM to target muni FTTP

Eagle Broadband has announced a non-exclusive partnership with IBM Global Services to target the growing market for municipal fiber-to-the-premises networks.

Eagle currently has a handful of municipal and greenfield developer customers for FTTP networks, including the city of Truckee Donner, Calif., which is using municipal bonds to fund a $10 million to $15 million fiber network for delivery of voice, video and 1.5 Mb/s broadband to its approximately 12,000 residents.

Eagle typically partners with FTTP equipment vendors such as Alloptic, Wave7 Optics and Worldwide Packets to deliver what it calls “four-play” service (the triple-play of voice, video and high-speed data plus security) but uses its own IP set top box for video delivery. The company not only builds, operates and maintains government broadband networks but also helps municipal customers finance FTTP projects with its own investment bankers, who have experience with these types of projects.

IBM will handle the overall project management, consult with customers and offer its own set of e-government applications. Eagle with design and operate the network.

“IBM has relationships with, if not all, virtually all of the municipalities and state governments across the country, so it gives us tremendous reach,” said Randy Shapiro, Eagle’s vice president of marketing.

The two companies will target towns between 10,000 and 750,000 residents.

Municipalities and public utilities are the largest segment of the FTTP market, according to Render, Vanderslice and Associates, representing roughly a third of the FTTP market in 2003.

In recent months, Eagle has announced partnerships with Science Applications International Corp.—the company that recently oversaw the vendor selection process for the Defense Department’s GIG-BE global communications network—and General Dynamics Decision Systems, which also has close ties to the federal government.