PEG Bandwidth employs Alcatel-Lucent to address rural mobile backhaul, enterprise service needs

Wireless backhaul specialist PEG Bandwidth has appointed Alcatel-Lucent (NYSE: ALU) as its IP/MPLS vendor of choice for its rural area network expansion effort.

PEG's network expansion will span 1,500 cell sites across ten states and over 6,000 route miles of fiber throughout the Central, Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern United States. When the expansion is completed, it will have a total of over 13,000 route miles of fiber that will pass 1.5 million buildings and serve over 2,600 municipalities.

For this initiative, PEG is using Alcatel-Lucent's 7750 Service Router, 7705 Service Aggregation Router, 7210 Service Access Switch and the 5620 Service Aware Manager.

While wireless backhaul is the main application, Alcatel-Lucent's solutions can be used to provide Ethernet services too.

The network extension will include access to 20 additional mobile switching centers and 31 new Points of Presence (PoPs) such as data centers, carrier hotels and COs where service providers can access bandwidth on an as-needed basis.

Network expansion has been an ongoing theme for PEG.

In addition to this latest effort, the service provider purchased fellow competitive fiber provider InLine in August, giving it an additional 1,100 new fiber route miles. It also won a 473-site Ethernet expansion project with an unnamed 4G operator last June.

Wireless backhaul may be a growing business for PEG and other competitive providers, but it's a finite opportunity. By supporting other wholesale customer needs and business services, it will broaden its revenue base. 

For more:
- see the release

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