PETALUMA, CA—March 16, 2011—Calix, Inc. (NYSE: CALX) today announced that HTC Communications (HTC) has selected the EXA Powered Calix E7 Ethernet Service Access Platform (ESAP) along with the 700GX/GE family of ONTs for its “Fiber Forward” initiative to bring advanced broadband services to the town of Hospers, Iowa and its surrounding rural areas. Capable of delivering broadband speeds of up to one gigabit per second (Gbps), the Calix E7 ESAP combines both gigabit passive optical network (GPON) and Active Ethernet technologies to deliver advanced IP services across the entire network, including voice, video, and high speed data services that will benefit approximately 1,000 households and businesses in portions of Lyon, O’Brien, Osceola and Sioux counties. The HTC Broadband Stimulus award totals $8.3 million in overall funds, including a $5.8 million grant and a $2.5 million loan, for plant engineering, materials, labor, and other costs, including access equipment.
“The rural subscribers of our region will now enjoy the benefits of a world class fiber network infrastructure, greatly expanding the advanced broadband services available to our communities today,” said David Raak, president of HTC. “This project will be a strategic investment in the future of our communities, stimulating economic development and allowing the residents and businesses of our region to keep pace with the demands of a global economy. By partnering with Calix, a company that has facilitated advanced fiber access deployments with hundreds of service providers across the country, we are confident that we have the right partner to deliver new opportunity to the deserving subscribers in these communities.”
HTC will be leveraging the Ethernet eXtensible Architecture (EXA) Powered E7-2 ESAP, an all-Ethernet, environmentally hardened, high capacity fiber access platform condensed into a highly flexible, small form factor. Because the E7-2 is only one rack unit (RU) high, the platform can be deployed in hard-to-reach places, retrofit into existing cabinets, or deployed modularly as a virtual, highly customizable chassis, where multiple E7-2s are managed via a single Internet protocol (IP) address. In combination with the E7, HTC will deploy the industry’s broadest and most advanced optical network terminal portfolio, the 700GX/GE family of ONTs.
“We would like to congratulate HTC and the rural residents of northwest Iowa for their Stimulus award and the enormous opportunity that this award provides,” said John Colvin, vice president of field operations at Calix. “This project will be transformative to the residents and businesses of this region, providing the advantages that come with having one of the most advanced communications infrastructures in the world at their disposal. Calix is proud to have been chosen to support and enable this initiative, and to be able to further extend advanced broadband access throughout rural Iowa.”
With today’s announcement, aggregate Calix vendor selections by Broadband Stimulus winners for “last mile” and “middle mile” awards have now reached thirty five different projects representing approximately $668 million in Stimulus-related grants, loans, and private investment for plant engineering, materials, labor, and other costs, including access equipment.
