Fujitsu takes rural telcos optical

Fujitsu Network Communications announced two deployments of its optical gear with rural independent operating companies this week. Mountain Telephone in West Liberty, Ky., and West River Cooperative Telephone Co. from western South Dakota have both deployed Fujitsu’s Flashwave optical networking products as part of major network enhancements.

Mountain Telephone has deployed Fujitsu optical networking platforms and management systems to upgrade its existing network to a new 10 Gb/s infrastructure over which it will deliver IPTV. It also will deploy the Fujitsu Flashwave 4500 Multiservice Provisioning Platform (MSPP) for next-generation Ethernet and video services. Also part of the deployment is the Flashwave 7120 optical extension system, which uses wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) to carry all services on a single optical fiber.

Mountain Telephone is a cooperative that serves Bath, Elliott, Menifee, Morgan and Wolfe counties. It has approximately 17,000 access lines. It is in the process of replacing all legacy switching, transport and access equipment in order to take advantage of an IP-based infrastructure that allows it to deliver services such as voice over IP and IPTV.

West River Cooperative Telephone Co. (WRCTC) has installed Fujitsu’s optical solutions to bring broadband services to western South Dakota. The new $819K network, which serves eight rural areas in the state and covers approximately 6500 square miles, enables WRCTC to offer advanced voice and high-speed Internet access services to its customers.

Jerry Reisenauer, general manager of West River Telephone, said that the Fujitsu optical solutions allow his company to offer the same advanced broadband services that larger metropolitan get and reduces his cost at the same time.

WRCTC also will deploy the MSPP. It will put it in 10 locations across the western part of the state and connect them with an OC-192 Sonet ring. The company also put a 4100 extension shelf in its corporate headquarters in Bison for aggregation purposes.

Fujitsu supplied its Network Life Cycle Services for delivery of the WRCTC network. WRCTC is one of 19 members of a holding company called SDN Communications, which provides business communication services, carrier services and hardware equipment support for the network. SDN upgraded its existing Fujitsu Netsmart 1500 Element Management System software to enable simplified management, provisioning, and surveillance of its entire Fujitsu network, including all network elements in the new WRCTC network.