Optical Solutions Inc. announced that Daktel Communications, the CLEC subsidiary of regional cooperative Dakota Central Telecommunications, will overbuild the city of Jamestown, North Dakota (pop. 15,500), with a competitive all-fiber network featuring state-of-the-art voice, IPTV, and high-speed data services.
Dakota Central is not a newcomer to FTTP. Over the past two years, the company has leveraged Optical Solutions' FiberPath system to attract the majority of Jamestown's commercial customer base. Dakota Central is parlaying the success of its business franchise into construction of a residential FTTH network that will serve as many as 6,500 Jamestown residents. Already, the company has achieved nearly 40 percent registration in the first phase of its build-out, which began this spring.
Dakota Central will deploy FiberPath 500--a complete ITU FSAN-compliant equipment and networking solution featuring Ethernet Gigabit technology. FiberPath 500's Gigabit passive optical network (GPON) offers unsurpassed bandwidth capacity--no other system today can match its depth and range of voice, video, and data applications delivered directly to the customer premise.
To fund its FTTH deployment, Dakota Central successfully applied for and received $15.5 million in low-interest financing from the USDA's Rural Utilities Service (RUS) as part of its broadband loan program. A July 7 open house at Dakota Central's Jamestown office will celebrate North Dakota's first fiber-to-the-home deployment. Elected officials from city, state, and national government will be on-hand to commemorate the event.