The movie “Field of Dreams” established the concept of Iowa as heaven for long-ago baseball players, but it's also becoming a haven for residential broadband services based on active Ethernet architectures. Seven telcos serving small communities in different parts of Iowa recently committed to deploying the technology.

All seven of those purchases occurred independently of one another, but had one thing (other than active Ethernet, that is) in common — each of the carriers is deploying some or all of the active Ethernet blades in Occam Networks' broadband loop carrier platform (see text box). Ross Sharer, senior vice president of marketing and sales for Occam Networks, said the timing of the sales is coincidental, but also presents evidence of how word-of-mouth can be a vendor's best friend in the rural service provider market.

“It's different than the large telcos,” Sharer said. “They make their own decisions, but these guys aren't competitors, so they share a lot of information, and there is a ton of word-of-mouth going on between them.”

And what many of the rural telcos in Iowa and elsewhere are talking about when it comes to fiber-to-the-home technologies are the benefits of active Ethernet versus passive optical networking (PON) architectures. “The majority of the time, we are seeing customers that are trying to make a decision between active Ethernet and PON,” Sharer said. “Sometimes they are running both at the same time in different markets.

Although the major telcos dealing with dense chunks of urban and suburban customer bases mostly are deploying triple-play services based on PON architectures, there are other choices, particularly in markets where customers are distributed over a broad geography. Active Ethernet, as touted by vendors such as Occam Networks, Allied Telesyn and Lucent Technologies (following its acquisition of Riverstone) is making headway in markets covered by rural independent telephone companies. That's at least partially because active Ethernet, which uses dedicated Ethernet pipes without passive splitters to reach customers, can be deployed over longer distances than PON without suffering bandwidth degradation.

In some cases, active Ethernet has been tested to work at deployment distances up to 80 km from a central office, which is at least four times longer than the longest PON deployment. Most large telco PON deployments come in significantly under the theoretical 20 km limit.

“A lot of these customers like active Ethernet versus PON for IPTV and triple play,” Sharer said. “They don't need to provide a full Gig to their customers, but they want something that's dedicated and has flexibility. Active Ethernet leverages Ethernet, but with carrier-grade quality and fail-over.”

But Sharer added that Ethernet can't skimp on other security and management capabilities that PON offers. “At our user group meeting, one guy told us about how he basically watched a virus crawl across his entire market taking down system after system,” Sharer said. “Rurals aren't isolated, and they have all of the same security threats that everybody else has, so they need a technology that is TR-100-capable and can do firewalling.”

Though rural telcos also have an affinity for providing face-to-face customer service, complex triple-play service environments also require some kind of centralized remote monitoring capability. “In the brave new world, a butt set just isn't enough for a phone guy,” Sharer said. “You need monitoring and remote in-line testing, too.” Active Ethernet architectures comply with the TR-069 specification for remote device management.

Active Ethernet actually is a fairly well-worn concept, having been positioned as a telco broadband solution for more than 10 years. Broadband PON and Gigabit PON may be getting all of the headlines, as the major ILECs carry out high-profile requests for proposal for the technology, but active Ethernet might be the favorite outside of the three largest telcos.

THE IOWA SEVEN

Farmers Mutual Telephone Cooperative/USACommunications, based in Shellsburg
Deployed several Occam BLC 6000 blade types to offer subscribers triple-play services at current speeds of 28 Mb/s and potential speeds up to 1 Gb/s.

Northeast Iowa Telephone (NEIT), based in Monona
NEIT required a solution to shorten broadband loop lengths to facilitate triple-play services. Deployed Occam's BLC 6000 system in combination with a softswitch, enabling NEIT to complete a pure IP connection at the switch, removing the need to convert back to a TDM digital connection.

Andrew Telephone, based in Andrew
The company deployed Occam BLC 6314 blades in a DSLAM configuration to offer voice and data services.

Cooperative Telephone Exchange, based in Stanhope
Will be providing FTTP services to more than 500 homes, including triple-play services.

Baldwin/Nashville Telephone Co., based in Baldwin
Baldwin/Nashville completed a switch replacement project and also selected Occam as an access gateway to their new softswitch.

Schaller Telephone Co., based in Schaller
Deployed active Ethernet to offer POTS and DSL from remote cabinets. Occam installed BLC 6252 blades to integrate with the company's existing Class 5 switch.

Alpine Communications, based in Elkader
Wanted to increase bandwidth to customers through their existing platform and AFC cabinets. Occam BLC 6214 blades provide bandwidth required to offer video and includes a splitter that allows POTS lines to be directly affixed to the blade, enabling both POTS and ADSL2+ to be delivered to subscribers.