Oakland, CA — June 20, 2011 — Zhone Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ:ZHNE), a global pioneer in FTTx network access solutions, was chosen to help Hickory Telephone Company deliver advanced triple-play services – including radio-frequency (RF) video, voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) and high-speed data – to consumers and local businesses throughout Western Pennsylvania.
Zhone’s market-leading MXK™ solution is serving as the core multi-service access platform for Hickory Telephone Company’s new copper- and FTTx-based networks, providing intelligent Gigabit Passive Optical Network (GPON) connectivity within the operator’s network to facilitate a quick and efficient migration from its legacy POTS system to the new infrastructure model.
“We’ve been offering communications services to the local Hickory community for more than 100 years and understand how influential our ability to continuously innovate is on the growth and livelihood of our residential and business customers,” explained Grier Adamson, CEO, Hickory Telephone Company. “However, we also recognize that as we expand the breadth and reach of our services portfolio in the region, we must also expand the capacity of our networks. Fortunately, the Zhone MXK gives us more than enough growth flexibility to increase our bandwidth offerings to customers now and support any unexpected capacity requirements that emerge as we continue our migration to more advanced voice, video and data services.”
The Zhone MXK was chosen by Hickory Telephone Company in part because of its ability to provide GPON-based FTTH access at the lowest cost, but primarily because it delivers the most density of GPON ports in the smallest footprint. The multi-services access platform offers a 72-port POTS feature and can also support T1s and POTS for business solutions as needed.
“What operators have told us is so appealing about the MXK is its unique flexibility and scalability for both copper and fiber networks, especially considering the extensive cost efficiencies and service differentiation it provides in comparison with other industry solutions,” said Brian Caskey, chief marketing officer, Zhone. “Every operator’s service portfolio and network design is slightly different, as is their migration strategy. That’s why Zhone’s FTTx solutions were designed specifically to manage the individual complexities of multi-service access facing customers such as Hickory Telephone.”
Regardless of how similar today’s bandwidth challenges may be between operators, the MXK was built to address the specific field requirements of each operator’s network architecture. Featuring industry-leading density, scalability and switching capacity, the MXK is the industry’s first terabit access concentrator and provides non-blocking capacity of up to 3,600 100 Mbps GPON subscribers or 360 1G Active Ethernet subscribers.
The resulting long-term performance quality and reliability of this approach to multi-service access has driven more than 100 service providers in over 40 countries worldwide to integrate the MXK into their networks. In total, more than 1,350 fully redundant, carrier-grade all-IP MXK platforms are currently deployed across the globe.
For more information about Zhone’s MXK solution or to learn more about the other solutions offered in the new Zhone FiberHome™ portfolio, please visit http://www.zhone.com/products/MXK/ or http://www.zhone.com/solutions/fttn/.
