PETALUMA, CA—September 28, 2010—Calix, Inc. (NYSE: CALX) today announced that the town of Concord, MA and the city of Highland, IL have selected the Calix Unified Access portfolio for their advanced broadband initiatives, which bring “Fiber Forward” to thousands of residences and business in their communities.
The historic town of Concord, MA, located outside of Boston, was the birthplace of a revolution back in 1776, and may be starting another in 2010 as the nation’s first “Smart Grid” energy deployment combining a gigabit passive optical network (GPON) with wireless technologies. The town and its wholly owned and operated utility, Concord Municipal Light, are implementing the Smart Grid to help manage peak energy demand and enabling residents to monitor their own energy usage. The two-way fiber optic communications network will leverage the Calix E7 Ethernet Service Access Platform (ESAP) to deliver GPON to Calix 700GX/GE optical network terminals (ONTs) located at wireless collector sites attached to each transformer in the network. These collector sites are part of a wireless mesh network that includes smart meters and electrical devices, such as water heaters, in Concord’s homes and businesses.
Concord Municipal Light is a distributor of electrical power, but does not possess its own generating facilities. The $4.5 million project, the value of which includes plant engineering, materials, labor, and other costs, including access equipment, generates savings by reducing the amount of electricity the city requires during times of peak demand and enables active management of the distribution system and power factor, a measure of system losses. In addition to these efficiency benefits, this fiber-enabled Smart Grid system will help expand Concord’s voluntary load management program and enable residents to proactively monitor their energy use via Google’s PowerMeter energy monitoring tool. As Keith Ingram, telecommunications coordinator at Concord Municipal Light explains, “we are using advanced fiber access technologies from Calix to cost-effectively drive Smart Grid-enabled efficiencies in our electrical utility operations, but the real winners will be the residents and businesses of Concord, who will now have the tools to save money by monitoring and conserving energy in real time.”
The city of Highland, IL, located 30 miles east of St. Louis, MO, is home to 9,400 residents and is both a service center for the surrounding agricultural area as well as a suburban community to the St. Louis metropolitan area. Driven by a lack of broadband options from incumbent operators, the city in 2009 began planning and issuing the first in a series of $18.8 million bonds for the purpose of operating its own broadband network. The city has selected a combination of Calix C7 Multiservice Access Platforms (MSAPs), E7 Ethernet Service Access Platforms (ESAPs), and the family of 700GX/GE ONTs to meet the burgeoning service demands of the community. Residences and businesses throughout the community can look forward to advanced broadband services that include reliable voice, high-quality video, and high-speed data services capable of delivering up to 1 gigabit per second (Gbps) to each premises via GPON and point-to-point Ethernet technologies. As Mark Latham, Highland city manager explains, “Due to the increasing importance of broadband to the quality of life of our residents as well as the economic development of the city of Highland, we viewed the lack of broadband alternatives as a crisis, and developed a strategic plan to address it head-on. By moving ‘Fiber Forward’ with a fiber access leader like Calix, we believe that we have put the city on the right path to a better future, and residents and businesses alike will soon be enjoying the advanced broadband services that they deserve.”
“Municipalities like Concord and Highland are taking the initiative to leverage fiber access technologies to bring new efficiencies and services to meet the demands of their residents and businesses, and in doing so are investing in the future of their communities,” said John Colvin, vice president of field operations at Calix. “The Calix architecture and our Unified Access portfolio are a perfect match for the long term strategic investments that these communities are making. Calix platforms are designed with the bandwidth headroom and architectural flexibility to meet what we expect to be the service needs of communities for decades. We are proud to be working with Highland and Concord to bring advanced broadband services and efficiencies to their respective communities, and congratulate their residents and businesses on being the beneficiaries of these exciting initiatives.”
