South Arkansas Telephone Co. Inaugurates Optical Network Based on Ekinops Equipment

Company Lights Up 300-Mile Network Spanning Southern Arkansas

South Arkansas Telephone Company (SATCO) is now offering high-bandwidth services to its business and consumer customers using equipment from Ekinops, a leading supplier of next-generation optical network equipment.

SATCO has deployed the Ekinops 360 optical transport platform and is leveraging it to offer services at up to 10 gigabits per second that include Internet access, cable TV, and voice over IP phone service.

SATCO, a century-old local telephone company based in Hampton, chose Ekinops to enable the 300-mile fiber-optic network it has installed, a network that stretches from Hope to Monticello across the southern tier of Arkansas.

The company was looking for a flexible solution that would allow it to offer 10G services now, with an easy upgrade path to 100G offerings as its needs grow. The ability to simply plug in 100G modules to equipment that is already deployed and carrying 10G services will help speed the rollout of 100G when the time comes and was key to SATCO’s selection of the Ekinops 360.

"We have been planning this network for years and see it as a key to economic development across the region," said Mark Lundy, Director of South Arkansas Telephone Company. "The cost-effective equipment that Ekinops provided to enable us to go live on this network was the final step toward making our optical dream a reality."

"SATCO is a perfect example of how service providers are making the leap into full digital communications solutions companies for their business and individual customers," said Kevin Antill, Vice President of Sales of Ekinops. "Its ability to serve those customers has been significantly enhanced by installing the Ekinops 360 and making it the foundation of all their service offerings."

About Ekinops

Ekinops is a leading supplier of next generation optical transport equipment for telecommunications service providers. The Ekinops 360 addresses Metro, Regional, and Long-Haul applications with a single, highly-integrated platform. Ekinops is a market-leading innovator in 100G transport with a coherent line of products that truly optimizes optical networks and comes in 1RU, 2RU or 7RU chassis. The Ekinops 360 relies on the highly-programmable Ekinops T-Chip® (Transport-on-a-Chip) architecture that enables fast, flexible and cost-effective delivery of new services for high-speed, high-capacity transport. Using the Ekinops 360 carrier-grade system, operators can simply increase capacity of their networks – CWDM, DWDM, Ethernet, ESCON, Fibre Channel, SONET/SDH, and uncompressed video (HD-SDI, SD-SDI, ASI). Ekinops is headquartered in Lannion, France, and Ekinops Corp., a wholly-owned subsidiary, is incorporated in the USA. For more information, visit www.ekinops.net.

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EkinopsDominique Arestan, [phone]Marketing Communications DirectorMobile: [phone] [e-mail]