Smart invests in fibre-to-premises rollout


11 May 2005

Hot on the heels of introducing triple play broadband, TV and telephone services to residential services, up and coming Irish broadband provider Smart Telecom has signed a deal with a Californian networking firm to deploy fibre to the premises technology in new multi-dwelling and mixed-use developments, siliconrepublic.com has learned.

Yesterday Smart Telecom revealed it is offering developers and builders the opportunity to install the required fibre at building stage and offer individuals in new homes in new developments more than 70 digital TV channels, 15 radio channels, a telephone service and unlimited access to a 2Mbps internet connection.

The service, known as Smart Vision, is available at present in 7,000 new apartment developments in Smithfield, Park West and Prospect Hill in Dublin, costing residents €100 a month.

However, what was not announced locally, but emerged from California, was the signing of a major deal with Alloptic Inc, a pioneer in the development and deployment of Gigabit Ethernet Passive Optical Networks (GEPONs), the ultimate communications network for today and tomorrow.

Smart is deploying the Alloptic fibre access network solution to provide voice, data and internet protocol (IP) video services in new multi-dwelling unit communities and mixed-use developments.

The Alloptic solution employs a standard international telecoms union architecture, while delivering a gigabit of bandwidth. With a native ability to support traditional voice over an Ethernet-based platform, Alloptic is able to provide today’s worry-free telephone services while seamlessly supporting next-generation services such as IP high-definition TV.

“As we reviewed our technology options, Alloptic was the only equipment provider to offer a truly converged service platform that we needed for delivery of Smart Telecom’s Digital Village products and services,” said Oisin Fanning, CEO of Smart Telecom.

“With the bandwidth available on the Alloptic system, we are able to flexibly add to and reconfigure what services we offer our consumers. Whether it is our IP video, video-on-demand, security monitoring or network-based personal video recorder functionality, our optical access network allows us the flexibility to offer consumers a superior mix of services at extremely competitive rates.

“Using the Alloptic GEPON architecture gives us the freedom to quickly expand our network into new areas, as well as how and where we configure our head-end facilities,” Fanning said.

By John Kennedy