SANTA BARBARA, Calif.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Occam Networks (NASDAQ:OCNW) today announced that five members of the Western Illinois Video (WIV) Group, a consortium of service providers that was formed to enable its members to offer advanced video services, have selected Occam’s BLC 6000. The service providers, New Windsor Telephone, Oneida Telephone Exchange, Reynolds Telephone, Viola Home Telephone Company and Woodhull Telephone Company, will use a mix of access technologies to offer advanced services to customers in rural counties across west central Illinois.
The WIV Group, an adjunct of Western Illinois Network Services (WINS), has been providing video services to approximately 15,000 access lines since 2004. As WINS, the group of eight wireline operators initially offered dial-up and DSL services and with the creation of WIV, the same companies’ pooled resources enable the consortium to offer video content over an IPTV headend located at Oneida Telephone Exchange.
“Occam’s expertise in delivering IP video solutions was the best fit for our network and has delivered great improvements in user experience,” says Dave Olson, general manager of Oneida Telephone Exchange. “In addition, our work with other members of the WIV Group has provided us with successful models for utilizing Occam’s equipment for our own planned FTTH deployments.”
With many member companies migrating to FTTH, the group is leveraging Occam’s BLC 6000 multiservice access platform (MSAP) with its mix of DSL, Gigabit Ethernet (GigE) and GPON technologies. As WIV companies work together to provide IP video to their subscribers, Occam’s extensive experience in IPTV is the key to successful interoperability between the various solution components.
“Fiber is obviously the way of the future for New Windsor to be able to provide the advanced services, DVR functionality and HDTV our customers demand,” said general manager Troy Nimrick of New Windsor Telephone. “A real aid to our success has been the ability to work across a variety of broadband technologies and across WIV member companies on Occam’s BLC 6000 platform.”
A long-time Occam customer, New Windsor began deploying Active Ethernet for a FTTH project serving its CLEC territory last year and selected Occam for its proven Ethernet experience and reliability. Reynolds Telephone also deployed Occam’s GPON solution for a FTTH project serving its local exchange earlier this year.
As the newest Occam customer, Woodhull Telephone Company is currently embarking on a complete fiber overbuild of its network with plans to offer all customers the same advanced IP services they currently provide. Viola Home Telephone, an Occam customer since the WIV Group was formed six years ago, also plans to leverage Occam’s fiber solutions in plans for future FTTH deployments.
“The WIV Group is ahead of the curve for its commitment to providing their communities with the best broadband experience possible,” says Juan Vela, director of marketing and strategy at Occam Networks. “As rural wireline operators invest in new network infrastructure, service providers like the WIV group lead the way—addressing their challenges with innovative partnerships, lowered shared costs and new advanced services.”
