(Telephony) As network builds slow amid a capital crunch for carriers, Hitachi Telecom is offering a solution that allows service providers to offer high-speed services over existing fiber, some of which may lack the quality necessary for deployment of the latest amplification technologies.

Faced with this dilemma, Norlight Telecommunications, a private regional carrier in the midwestern U.S., this week announced it will pay Hitachi Telecom $40 million to upgrade its network from OC-48 rings to performance levels of 10 Gb/s. The project is scheduled to be completed in May.

These gains will be generated by utilizing just 32 of Norlight’s 40 channels--the core wavelengths that are more stable and predictable, said David Foote, Hitachi Telecom’s director of optical products and technology. Combined with careful system engineering, this technique will allow Norlight to offer customers guaranteed service level agreements, he said.

“We think there’s a good-sized market with these legacy networks,” Foote said. “There’s a lot of carriers out there that don’t have the newer fiber.”

In Norlight’s case, Hitachi Telecom’s network enhancements will multiply the carrier’s capacity by 32 times and allow it to pursue customers seeking higher-speed connections.

“Hitachi Telecom allows us to stay flexible in upgrading our fault-tolerant network architecture and to ‘future proof’ our network,” said Bob Rogers, Norlight’s senior vice president, in a statement.