Calix Introduces Three ONTs for Advanced Business Services

Each model of the 740GE optical network terminals is optimized for a specific deployment scenario.

Broadband communications access systems and software specialist Calix announced the introduction of three optical network terminals to its Calix Unified Access portfolio targeted at the small to medium-size business and mobile backhaul markets. The 741GE, 742GE and 743GE ONTs feature industry-standard Ethernet operations, administration and management (OAM) and are available in an environmentally hardened, wall-mountable form factor. These newest members of the Calix 700GE family support a full gigabit per second of symmetrical bandwidth.

The 740GEs feature a complement of standards-based Ethernet service assurance that help enable communications service providers to offer smaller businesses Metro Ethernet Forum (MEF) services and the tools to ensure conformance to service-level agreements (SLAs). The 740GE ONTs also feature Calix auto-detect technology, which supports both point-to-point Gigabit Ethernet and Gigabit Passive Optical Network (GPON). For example, with Calix auto-detect, a small business can begin with a 100M-bps service over GPON and transition to a full dedicated gigabit per second of symmetrical bandwidth as needed.

"As fiber networks continue to expand across the world, they are reaching a level of maturity that requires the delivery of new advanced services," said Kevin Pope, senior vice president of product development at Calix. "Business and mobile backhaul services provide our customers with opportunities to generate new revenue streams and to establish new customer relationships and strengthen existing ones. The addition of these ONTs can help our customers keep growing."

Each model of the 740GE ONTs is optimized for specific deployment scenarios: The 741GE, the base business unit with OAM support, features two GE and two POTS ports, while the 742GE and 743GE ONTs feature OAM support and customer-facing small form-factor pluggable transceivers (SFPs) supporting both copper and fiber interfaces. The 743GE ONT also supports two T1/E1s, which together with Gigabit Ethernet optimizes the ONT for mobile backhaul to small cell sites and government institutions that require T1s or fractional T1 services.

"Communications service providers have the opportunity to take advantage of an emerging revenue source targeted at the SMB market," said Matt Davis, director of consumer and SMB telecom services at IT market research firm IDC. "By utilizing the OAM capabilities built into the Calix 740GE ONTs and guaranteeing SLAs for small- and medium-sized businesses over fiber, service providers can potentially deliver a whole new level of advanced business services that are powerful, flexible, cost effective to deliver, and differentiated from their competition."