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Border to Border Communications Signs Contract with Optical Solutions Inc. to Roll Out FTTP System in Texas

Posted on: Wednesday, 25 February 2004, 06:00 CST

Fiber to the premises (FTTP) market leader Optical Solutions Inc. today announced it has been awarded a contract from Border to Border Communications, an independent telephone company serving Zapata County in South Texas. Border to Border previously served customers in its 850-square mile service area via a Basic Exchange Telephone Radio System (BETRS). ¶"Due to the rapidly falling cost of deploying fiber, we can now economically provide voice and high-performance broadband services to our customers via a new FiberPath 500 FTTP network," said Herman C. Roark Jr., president of Border to Border Communications. "In addition to dial-up Internet, customers will have access to high-speed Internet at levels and rates available in urban areas."¶ Border to Border will install fiber optic cable facilities to every residential and business customer in its service area. FiberPath 500, an ITU FSAN-compliant all passive optical network (PON) system, will initially be used to deliver voice and high-speed data, with additional services planned for the future. ¶"Border to Border carefully studied the economics of deploying fiber, and based on current costs, proved it is cheaper to install fiber to their expansive service area than copper," said Denny Foster, director of sales at Optical Solutions Inc. "In the past few years, the total cost of installing PON has come down by more than 40 percent. It's the most cost-effective way to deliver a triple-play of voice, video and data services on one network to the customer premise."¶ According to a recently published report by the Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA), broadband is an accelerator of economic development. With broadband access, worker productivity increases, jobs are created, and wages grow. Broadband creates opportunities for bundling services together and enables operators to offer more services to consumers at lower prices. ¶"Bringing state-of-the-art broadband to a large, sparsely populated area like Zapata County will have a tremendous economic impact on current and future generations," Foster said. "Border to Border also gains significant operating efficiencies by deploying a gigabit passive optical network."¶ FiberPath 500 meets the broadband needs of entire communities and is a complete equipment, networking and service solution. At its core is the FiberDrive(R) Optical Line Terminal (OLT), a central office (CO) head-end offering the highest network capacity in the industry at 9 gigabits of bandwidth. FiberDrive works in conjunction with FiberPoint(R), a field-proven Optical Network Terminal (ONT) located at the subscriber's premise, to deliver a triple-play of voice, video and data services via a passive optical network (PON).

¶ About Optical Solutions

¶ Optical Solutions Inc. is driving the gigabit passive optical network (GPON) evolution with its FiberPath(R) 500 fiber to the premises (FTTP) solution. FiberPath 500 incorporates GPON for broadband delivery of voice, video and high-speed data directly to the home and broader community. Optical Solutions leads the market with more than 60 percent of the installed base of PON systems in North America. These systems are fully operational and generating revenue. Optical Solutions' customers are facilities-based service providers, including independent telephone companies, competitive and incumbent local exchange carriers, utilities, municipalities and housing developers. For more information, please visit: www.opticalsolutions.com

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