OREANDA-NEWS. May 11, 2011. Horizon Telcom has announced the selection of Fujitsu Network Communications Inc., a leading provider of business, information technology and communications solutions, along with Fujitsu’s partners Juniper Networks (U.S.), Inc. and Calix, Inc. in fulfilling Horizon’s mission to deliver one of the nation’s most advanced broadband communications networks to southern and eastern Ohio. The new network will be constructed through 34 counties and is part of the Connecting Appalachia federally-funded stimulus project awarded to Horizon in 2010.

“Horizon is very proud that our vision for bringing the latest technology in fiber broadband deployment to Appalachian Ohio will be made possible through our partnership with Fujitsu, Calix and Juniper,” said Joe Corbin, Horizon vice president of Operations. “The choice was very clear based on their industry leading collaboration and the joint delivery of best-of-breed network products which will enable a network architecture servicing Horizon customers with premier levels of broadband service well into the future.”

Under the leadership of Fujitsu, the Fujitsu – Juniper – Calix consortium collaborated on an end-to-end solution that allows Horizon to meet the needs of subscribers today, while building the foundation to scale and evolve in the future. In addition to Fujitsu delivering the full Master Network Integration turnkey solution, Horizon will leverage the Fujitsu Richardson solutions lab for interoperability testing of the end-to-end solution prior to network deployment. Horizon’s solution is also relying on the Fujitsu FLASHWAVE® 9500 Packet Optical Networking Platform (Packet ONP), which provides the ability to deliver Layer 2 services across an optical backbone.

“We are honored to be selected for this opportunity to work with Horizon who is leveraging our multi-vendor network integration expertise and network operations center capabilities along with our industry-leading optical networking technology,” said Greg Manganello, senior vice president of Services at Fujitsu Network Communications. “Juniper Networks and Calix bring their own market-leading technology to the project, resulting in a best-in-class multi-layer communications infrastructure for the citizens and businesses of southern and eastern Ohio.”

Horizon plans to deploy the Juniper Networks® MX Series 3D Universal Edge Routers to increase total network capacity while reducing operational costs and accelerating delivery of advanced broadband services. Powered by the Junos® Trio chipset and Junos operating system, Juniper's MX 3D products directly address enterprise and service provider needs for more flexible technology and business models, providing them with ‘universal edge’ routing for business, residential and mobile services at massive scale on a single network. With total capacity of up to 2.6 Terabits per second, the MX Series enables Horizon to support intelligent edge services today while also building in long-term scalability and flexibility that can support new and emerging bandwidth-intensive applications in the future.

Calix completes the collaboration, bringing to Horizon’s initiative its extensive expertise in the access portion of the network and its powerful Unified Access portfolio. To bring high-capacity broadband services to the approximately 600 regional community anchor institutions targeted by the project, Horizon plans to deploy the EXA Powered Calix E7-2 Ethernet Service Access Platform (ESAP) and 700GX/GE family of Optical Network Terminals (ONTs). The E7-2 ESAP is a one rack unit (RU) two-slot chassis with 100 gigabits per second (Gbps) available to each slot, and was architected with a focus on fiber access, Ethernet services, and the ultra high-capacity bandwidth needs of the future. The E7-2 can deploy any mix of GPON, point-to-point gigabit Ethernet (GE) or Active Ethernet (AE), and 10GE transport for business and residential services. Complementing the E7-2 at the subscriber premises, the Calix 700GX/GE family is the industry’s broadest portfolio of ONTs, the first to support GPON and AE/GE in a single ONT, and capable of delivering ultra high-speed Internet services of up to a full gigabit per second to subscribers of this world class network.

Federal funding for the new fiber optic broadband network connecting Ohio’s Appalachian counties was awarded to Horizon in July, 2010. This USD 66.4 million Broadband Technologies Opportunity Program (BTOP) stimulus grant, awarded by the National Telecommunications Infrastructure Administration (NTIA), will fund 70% of the USD 94.9 million project, with Horizon providing the remaining 30%. Construction of the project is expected to begin this summer.