FTTP Solution: Ozona Cable Called on Multicom, Multicom Called on DZS
THE BACK STORY: The (Rural) American Dream
Scenic and serene – but slow and unreliable Internet, if any. But, there is a solution…
Roughly 23.4 million Americans who live in rural areas lack a broadband connection, and many places are not equipped for the internet boom. Of the rural communities that have broadband access, only a few have high-speed capabilities. Whether they receive internet access via a local cable company or DSL, speeds are much slower than those in urban areas.
Telecommunications providers in local areas must make a profit to sustain service, so any solution must pay for itself via revenues from its use. Even municipally-owned entities must make the business model work. Broadband based on fiber to the premises (FTTP) can be properly designed, maintained, and extended to support future workloads because data demand will continue to increase. An everyday example of data growth that exceeds classic consumer and business networks is multimedia or video. From SD to HD to 4K and beyond, classic networks often reach their limits, particularly when they must operate with high bandwidth in both directions. Only FTTP services provide this investment protection and future-proofing capability.
CASE STUDY: Ozona Cable & Broadband
As the sole cable company in Ozona, Texas, local company Ozona Cable provided television services to businesses and residents in town. In small-town communities, businesses need to find creative solutions to promote growth. In order to grow the businesses within their community, Ozona Cable needed to find a way to extend its service offerings beyond basic television.
THE CHALLENGE / OPPORTUNITY: Finding an Affordable and Reliable FTTP Solution to Bring ‘Big City’ Broadband to a Small Rural Community
OZONA, TEXAS: Expanding services created an opportunity to find a solution that could scale at the right cost. Ozona Cable called on Multicom, a distributor and system integrator for end-to-end communication solutions based in Longwood, Florida, to help them select a FTTP solution that was affordable and reliable. Ozona Cable’s two biggest priorities for the system were to maintain uptime and resolve technical issues quickly. Because Ozona is more than 200 miles from the nearest large city, waiting for a technician to physically travel to Ozona was not feasible. They wanted system support from a technical team that could access the system remotely, at any time of the day.
Multicom identified DZS as the ideal partner for the Ozona project. DZS’ equipment was significantly more affordable than other manufacturers’ offerings and it had a dedicated professional services organization to deliver remote technical support. In July 2017, Ozona Cable began laying a four-mile-long fiber infrastructure in town so it could begin to build the pipeline for its business.
THE SOLUTION: DZS FTTP Networking Solutions
Dominic Ruggiero (and a friend), a Multicom Certified Fiber to the Home Professional (CFHP)
Working with Multicom sales engineer and Certified Fiber to the Home Professional (CFHP) Dominic Ruggiero, the Ozona Cable team designed a solution based on the DZS 1RU MX-180GE Optical Line Terminal (OLT), which would be based at the Ozona Cable headquarters building. The DZS equipment is designed and equipped to be future-proof, allowing Ozona Cable to offer symmetrical bandwidth services its customers require at today’s desired bandwidth of 50Mbps (or any other, using built-in software-hardware control). That bandwidth can be easily expanded as each enterprise’s needs grow, with the existing DZS software/hardware to provide a full 1Gbps symmetrical service to each Ozona Cable customer. The aggregation platform supports 2400 ZNID Series Optical Network Terminals (ONT) based at each of its customer locations.
THE BENEFITS: Rural FTTP Services Benefit Ozona and its Customers Equally
After the new system went live, Ozona Cable secured four new large enterprise customers:
- The local water department
- Two oil and gas companies
- A hardware store
The enterprise customers have had highly-positive experiences and say the high-speed Internet access has helped make their operations faster and easier. The water department said all of the town’s water meters work faster, and they can now read customers’ meters digitally and remotely, which they could not do before.
Since July 2017, Ozona Cable has experienced 15 percent revenue growth and expects the growth to continue as more enterprise customers and small businesses adopt the services. Ozona Cable once provided just television services to local residents. Now, the company is the sole, local provider of high-speed Internet for businesses and soon, households. Ozona Cable’s goal is to offer high-speed Internet services to all 2,800 homes in town in the future.
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