Salisbury, NC progresses with its municipal FTTH deployment

Salisbury, NC's dreams of transforming itself into a so-called 'smart city' with a Fiber to the Home (FTTH) network deployment took two big steps this week as the city revealed that it has employed Ericsson for IPTV services and Zhone for next-gen PON equipment.

While minimal details on the IPTV deployment were revealed in the release about what specific platforms will be used, Ericsson Federal did say it would provide IPTV technology that will enable Salisbury to build out an IPTV portal and service suite. Serving as the underlying bandwidth engine for the FTTH network will be Zhone, which will provide its MXK and zNID FTTH solutions.  

Looking at the network as an anchor to attract new businesses, Salisbury has high hopes for its municipal FTTH network. Given the challenges that other municipalities (namely Utah's iProvo) have faced in building out FTTH networks, it will be interesting to see how Salisbury's ambitions shake out. However, it appears that Salisbury did do its homework. Before officially pulling the trigger, city officials conducted their own feasibility study and a business case analysis.

For more:
- see the Ericsson release here
- and Zhone's release here