Opelika, Ala. and Paris, April 24, 2012 – The City of Opelika, Alabama will soon be providing residents with the ability to monitor and manage their own energy consumption to help save money and make their homes greener with the help of smart grid technology from Alcatel-Lucent (Euronext Paris and NYSE: ALU). A new fiber optic network will also give residents the opportunity to access new high-quality broadband voice, data and video services, including lightning-fast Internet access, IPTV and video-on-demand services.
A new high-capacity ‘Fiber-to-the-home’ (FTTH) network will bring these broadband connections to households and businesses and allow Opelika Power Services to extend the reach of its ‘smart grid’, supporting new power sensors and smart meters across the city.
The new network will allow the company to dynamically monitor and measure performance across the power grid in real time, helping them more effectively manage the flow of electricity and identify and resolve problems quickly, reduce repair time for outages and minimize impact to customers. A detailed picture of customers’ energy needs will help the utility balance power supply and demand, leading to more operational efficiency, reduced waste and greener power. The use of remote sensors and smart meters will also provide savings by automating operations, enabling employees to work more efficiently and helping to minimize the risk of human error.
Residents will be offered advanced meter reading devices providing them with real-time information about the amount of energy being used in their households. As a result, they will be able to identify when their usage is at a peak and when there are opportunities, day or night, to reduce consumption and save money.
As importantly, the new FTTH network will also allow the city to provide high-speed connections directly to all the homes in the city, addressing a desire from many Opelika residents for higher-quality broadband services. The network will meet this demand for superfast Internet access, video and secure voice services.
A common citywide network securely supporting both smart grid communications and broadband services will create a more efficient use of resources, and support a variety of new business opportunities through the universal availability of high-speed connectivity.
Mayor Gary Fuller of the City of Opelika said: “We are pleased to work with Alcatel-Lucent to offer all the residents of the City of Opelika, as well as business and industry, a consistent quality of broadband service , which is what they have been asking for. Additionally, the deployment of smart grid technology will empower people to make their own decisions about energy usage to help make their homes greener, and put more money back in their wallets in the process.”
Robert Vrij, President of Alcatel-Lucent’s Americas Region, said: “Alcatel-Lucent is committed to innovative approaches that not only enable use of smart grids, but also help connect currently underserved rural communities which don’t have the same communications quality and speeds that are seen in the larger towns and cities. Alcatel-Lucent has a deep-rooted expertise in the delivery of fiber-based broadband and smart grid technology projects that are helping to reduce costs, save power and enrich lives across the globe.”
Under the three-year project Alcatel-Lucent will deliver a Fiber-to-the-Home (FTTH) optical backbone network in the City of Opelika based on Alcatel-Lucent’s Gigabit passive optical network (GPON) technology. The project also includes full services and integration of the Alcatel-Lucent ‘Triple Play Express’ solution for regional operators. To allow the City of Opelika to deliver voice, data and video to residents, Alcatel-Lucent’s Optical Network Terminal will be deployed at residences and the 7750 Ethernet Service Switch will provide service aggregation, bandwidth management and subscriber control. Alcatel-Lucent has also been selected as the integrator of the City of Opelika’s IPTV service, which runs on the Microsoft Mediaroom™solution.
