Broadband Stimulus award winner, Baldwin Telecom, Inc. (BTI), selected the Calix E7 Ethernet Service Access Platform (ESAP) to bring advanced broadband services to Troy, Wis.

The BTI Broadband Stimulus award consisted of over $9 million in overall funds, including $4.5 million in loans and another $4.5 million in grants through the Broadband Initiative Program (BIP) and the Rural Utilities Service (RUS), and an additional $121 thousand in private investment.

This project will leverage gigabit passive optical network (GPON) technology to bring advanced fiber services, including voice, video, and high speed data services, to more than 1,500 unserved or underserved households, small businesses, and institutions.

“For years, the town of Troy had been looking for ways to bring advanced broadband services to their community, and we are excited to now be bringing world class broadband services to its citizens,” said Larry Knegendorf, manager at BTI, in a press release.

“As the first telco in the state of Wisconsin to deploy fiber access technology to its residential customers in 2002, we know what it takes to successfully roll out an advanced broadband infrastructure, and we also know the tremendous benefits it can bring to a community,” said Knegendorf.

He said that in Calix (News - Alert), the company has chosen a partner with more fiber access deployments than any other vendor into North America, and a portfolio of fiber access technologies that will give the citizens of Troy one of the most advanced broadband infrastructures in the nation.

Officials with Calix said that the modular, EXA Powered Calix E7-2 is an all-Ethernet, environmentally hardened, high capacity fiber access platform condensed into a highly flexible, small form factor.

Company officials said that as the E7-2 is only one rack unit (RU) high, BTI can deploy it in hard-to-reach places, retrofit it into existing cabinets, or instead deploy multiple E7-2s modularly as a virtual, highly customizable chassis managed as a single Internet protocol (IP) address.

 BTI will deploy the E7-2s in combination with Calix 725 ONTs, capable of delivering advanced interactive video services through integrated radio frequency over glass (RFOG) technology, voice services, as well as advanced data services to subscribers.

“BTI’s deployment to the residents and businesses of Troy, Wisconsin is a great example of what Broadband Stimulus is all about – bringing advanced broadband services to communities that needed and wanted it, but for some reason were bypassed by the information superhighway,” said John Colvin, vice president of field operations at Calix.

Colvin said that this project should be transformative to the entire community, and demonstrates the leadership and innovation that BTI has consistently shown in enabling advanced broadband services throughout the region.

He said that Calix is proud to be a key enabler of this project, and congratulates BTI and the citizens of Troy in moving Fiber Forward in southeastern Wisconsin.

Calix is a North American provider of broadband communications access systems and software for fiber- and copper-based network architectures that enable communications service providers to connect to their residential and business subscribers.