High-Fiber Cyber
Calix Inc. (CALX), a Petaluma, Calif.-based provider of broadband communications access systems and software, is working with Iowa’s South Slope Cooperative Communications Co. to replace its aging copper communications infrastructure with one of the biggest and most advanced fiber-optic projects in the U.S. Calix CEO Carl Russo says it’s an honor to help make South Slope’s broadband vision of bringing highly demanded services such as IPTV and symmetrical residential and business data services a reality.
Serving 14,000 rural customers at a cost of $60 million over five years, the project will provide a network speed of one gigabit per second to each customer location, “10 times the speed of the fastest residential services offered by large service providers in the country,” Russo says. The conversion will be rolled out in segments and won’t result in any service interruption to customers, the company reports. Calix and South Slope say the project will help avoid continual upgrades in the future.
Emerging consumer demand and heightened competition are driving the project, which, Calix adds, is being completed without federal broadband stimulus funds.
