Two years into its five-year network upgrade across North Dakota, independent local exchange carrier Polar Communications said this week it is happy with its choice of Pannaway Technologies as a provider for access and transport gear.

Polar has deployed Pannaway’s IP Ethernet Service Convergence Network (SCN) platform in two exchanges already in order to convert its TDM- and ATM-based network to IP and Ethernet. The ILEC is in the process of completing five more this summer. The company has 27 exchanges serving 12, 500 subscribers in North Dakota and Minnesota.

Karl Blake, Internet operations supervisor for Polar, said the company is deploying GR303 and MGCP technology today but plans to support session initiation protocol (SIP) in the future. “With Pannaway’s products, we can switch easily from 303 to SIP,” he said.

Blake said Polar is looking to bring broadband to 100% of its customers and will use it to offer triple-play services, including voice-over-IP, video-on-demand, digital video recorder and high-definition TV on the video side.

Pannaway’s SCN comprises Broadband Aggregation Routers, Broadband Access Switches and Residential Gateway NIDs. It was the ease of deploying these systems that Blake cited in his evaluation of the vendor’s performance so far.

“When we put our [request for proposal] out looking for an IP solution, we found there are several vendors that are IP, but as far as a true end-to-end IP solution and being able to go from a GR303 to SIP easily with 911 capabilities, Pannaway came out as top choice in meeting all our technical terms and price point as well,” Blake said.

Pannaway’s timely addition to the list of approved vendors by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Rural Utilities Service (RUS) didn’t hurt either. It allowed the vendor to fall under the RUS financing rules. Polar funds most of its outside plant projects using RUS financing, and not being on the list of RUS-approved vendors makes it hard to win business, let alone stay in the loop on RFPs.

“It was crucial for us,” said Dale Allaire, director of marketing and communications for Pannaway, which received its RUS listing in August last year. “Before we had this, we didn’t even see many of those RFPs, so we missed some opportunities to be involved in these large deployments. We didn’t even know they existed because the consultants wouldn’t even look at a company that didn’t have an RUS listing.”

The Polar deal helped Pannaway get that listing.

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