FiberLight employs Ciena's P-OTS platform for wireless backhaul opportunities

FiberLight, a competitive provider selling both wholesale and business services, on Tuesday selected Ciena's (Nasdaq: CIEN) Packet Optical Transport Systems (P-OTS) for two large wireless backhaul service opportunities.

While FiberLight did not reveal the names of the two wireless operators it is serving, the new backhaul networks will bring fiber to over 450 cell towers and and provide both customers with 100 Mbps of connectivity at each tower, with the option to scale seamlessly to 1 Gbps as bandwidth demands dictate.

Andrew Stravelli, Vice President Network Engineering of FiberLight, said in a release that by enabling customers to "quickly scale from 100Mb/s to 1Gb/s per tower, eliminate bandwidth restrictions and reduce the potential for data bottlenecks."

With the first wireless operator opportunity located in West Texas, FiberLight is building what it says is a dedicated fiber-based backhaul network for a major LTE wireless provider that needed to quickly "increase bandwidth at each tower to 100 Mb/s, with the option to scale up rapidly in the future."

The West Texas Fiber to the Tower (FTTT) network is leveraging a new 3,000-mile metro and regional fiber network it began building in February and Ciena's 3900 P-OTS platform deployed at the network edge. This network was designed to be interconnected with its existing regional Texas long-haul network and its metro networks in Dallas, Fort Worth and San Antonio, the new network will connect San Angelo, Odessa, Midland, Abilene, Lubbock and Amarillo. It also includes a 250-route mile expansion of its existing Dallas metro fiber network.

In the second wireless backhaul deployment, FiberLight will leverage Ciena's POTS platforms to replace existing copper-based T1 and microwave towers with a dedicated fiber-based backhaul network. When this network is complete, FiberLight will provide Ethernet connectivity to 200 cell towers in four states: Texas, Washington, Maryland and Florida. In addition, it will connect towers with six major aggregation sites.

Besides equipment and network provisioning and monitoring tools, Ciena is also providing FiberLight with ongoing consultation, maintenance and support for this deployment via Ciena Specialist Services. With a goal of having all of the towers connected to the fiber network by the end of the year, the deployment is being done in three phases.

Wireless backhaul has become a big business for FiberLight.

Outside of Texas, FiberLight has been winning a number of fiber-based wireless backhaul in Florida. For example, the service provider won a contract to provide fiber services to 40 towers in Tampa.

For more:
- see the release

Special report: In detail: Following the Packet Optical Transport Systems (P-OTS) evolution

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