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Press
Release
May 7, 2003 - Wave7 Optics and US SONET Telephone Company of Illinois Begin
Fiber-to-the-Home Network Deployment to 3600 Homes and Businesses
“Last Mile Link” Products from Wave7 to Create “Ultra High
Speed” Network
for Integrated Telephone, Internet and Video Services
ALPHARETTA, GA, May 7, 2003: Wave 7 Optics and US SONET LLC today announced that
3600 homes and businesses in the Salem, IL area (approximately 60 miles east of
St. Louis) soon will have access to the most advanced fiber optic network
currently available for multiple telephone lines, more than 200 digital
television channels, ultra high-speed Internet, advanced gaming, or other data
services. US SONET recently began connecting their customers to the new network
and anticipate completing the network by year’s end.
“Our business plan encompasses the city of Salem, which contains 3600 homes and
businesses – and we plan to use Wave7 in all of them,” said John Andrews of US
SONET. “In the process of choosing the Last Mile Link as our optical access
product, we were looking for a platform technology to differentiate our selves
and a technology that will grow with us. Wave7 effectively showed how their
infrastructure would support everything we want to do now and in the future. HFC
and DSL architectures cannot support the services we plan to offer and competing
ATM-based optical systems come up short when it comes to ‘usable bandwidth’ per
subscriber.”
The Last Mile Link provides up to 300 times more capacity than competing
broadband systems, such as DSL or cable modem, at the same or lower installation
cost. Because of the inherent high-bandwidth capabilities of fiber optics and
Wave7’s unique architectural cost advantages, US SONET can provide each of their
customers access speeds from 256 kbps up to a maximum of 500 Mbps “symmetrical”
service, unlike typical “asymmetrical” services where download speeds far exceed
“upload” speeds.
Furthermore, the Last Mile Link uses standard data, telephone and CATV
interfaces as its customer premise devices to accommodate existing home and
business telephone, television and computer systems, meaning customers do not
have to buy new equipment to get on the new network. The system also supports
current emerging technology, such as IP telephony and IP streaming.
-more-
“In addition to numerous technical advantages, our customers can deploy the Last
Mile Link on a low ‘first cost’ basis and without risk of ‘stranded
investments,’ as they only add equipment when they need it – not in anticipation
of future connections that may not materialize,” said Tom Tighe, CEO of Wave7
Optics. “Furthermore, adding capacity in our system requires only the insertion
of an additional ‘line card’ in our ‘Last Mile Core’ field unit and an extra
Gigabit Ethernet optical interface in the ‘central office’ to increase bandwidth
throughput capability to customers.”
The Last Mile Link is an IP (Internet protocol) and Ethernet standards-based
optical access system that provides all traditional “carrier-grade” telephone
services (including fax), high-speed data (e.g., Internet service) and both
analog and digital video (including IP streaming video). Featuring
industry-leading privacy and security encryption techniques and industry-leading
“quality of service” mechanisms designed for business applications, the LML
overcomes the high-fiber counts, limited distance range and high central office
equipment costs that have stymied the growth of FTTx systems.
About US SONET
Based downstate in Salem, IL, US SONET is an Internet Service Provider and CATV
services provider and is one of the first service providers of any type in the
state to offer “fiber-to-the-home” services. US SONET and its CLEC and IXC arm,
Lightspeed Telecom LLC, currently provide local and long distance telephone,
Internet, cable television, and advanced gaming services to thousands of
subscribers throughout Southern Illinois.
About Wave7 Optics
Wave7 Optics, Inc. is a market leader in the fiber-to-the-home and business (FTTX)
optical access market. The Last Mile Link™ optical access system effectively
overcomes traditional cost and implementation barriers to the bandwidth capacity
bottleneck in the last mile of communications networks. Wave7 Optics’ innovative
approach to optical access is a generation ahead of competitive PON technologies
in both cost and capability. The Last Mile Link product suite provides solutions
that specifically address residential, business and multi-tenant customers with
a unifying architecture providing a complete triple play of voice, video, and
data services. Additional information about Wave7 Optics is available on the web
at www.wave7optics.com.
For more information please contact emmanuel.vella@w7optics.com.
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