Calix lands stimulus deployments in Iowa, Virginia

Broadband access equipment vendor Calix continues to collect deployment deals from network operators flush with broadband stimulus funds. The vendor this week announces two deals: one with Iowa’s HTC Communications and the other with a utility company in Bristol, Va.

HTC, which serves towns in rural Western Iowa, recently earned about $8.3 million worth of stimulus funds through a grant and a loan. The company chose the Ethernet Extensible Architecture (EXA) -powered E7 Ethernet Service Access Platform and the 700 GX/GE optical network terminals for a fiber GPON deployment project to serve the town of Hospers, Iowa, and its surrounding rural areas. About 1,000 households and businesses in portions of Lyon, O’Brien, Osceola and Sioux counties will be affected.

Calix said the EXA-powered units indicate environmentally hardened equipment designed for small footprint deployments, such as retrofits into existing cabinets.

Meanwhile, Bristol Virginia Utilities (BVU) in Bristol, Va., has selected the EXA-Powered Calix C7 Multiservice Access Platform and the 700GX/GE ONTs for a network expansion covering 18,000 residences and businesses in an eight-county region of Southwestern Virginia. The deployment comes after BVU received $28.4 million in overall broadband stimulus funds, including a $22.7 million grant from the National Telecommunications and Information Administration and a matching $5.7 million provided by the Virginia Tobacco Commission.

Calix has now won about $668 million worth of stimulus program-related business.