1 8 THE INCOMPAS SHOW I OCTOBER 24 - 26, 2022 www.bekabusinessmedia.com DAY 1 Y 2 Astound Wholesale Wins VSA Top Provider Astound Wholesale announced its recognition as a winner of ChannelVision’s 2022 Visionary Spotlight Award (VSA). The publication’s annual awards program recognizes innovative solutions in the communications industry across numerous categories, and for the third year in a row, Astound has been selected as one of the top wholesale providers in the nation. ChannelVision selected Astound as a winner in the Wholesale Broadband and Capacity category, recognizing the company for focusing on the “unique needs of wholesale partners to deliver infrastructure and services over a nationwide, 100 percent fiber network.” Each year, the publication’s editors and a panel of judges from independent industry resources pick the winners that best demonstrate creativity, feature set differentiation and forwardthinking, as well as the ability to drive growth. “The competition this year will be remembered for the applicants’ unique approaches to solving issues and creating solutions that answer the call of partners and end users,” said Beka Business Media President and CEO Berge Kaprelian. “Wave Wholesale stands out as a wholesale organization built specifically for partners. ChannelVision’s editors have been impressed by their robust metro and rural fiber network, complementary NNIs, and over 1 million broadband locations — as well as their commitment to transparency and customization.” Wave Business EVP and Chief Commercial Officer Patrick Knorr added, “We are highly focused on providing unparalleled value to our partners through products, customer service, and connectivity they can trust. We appreciate our efforts being recognized for the third time as a top provider in the industry.” With more than 41,000 route mi les of fiber and a dense on-net bui lding footprint, Astound Wholesale provides Ethernet, wavelength, dark fiber, DIA and broadband services across 12 states and more than 20 metro areas, including eight of the top ten in the United States. p Learn more by visiting Astound Wholesale at Lounge 201 on the Exhibit Floor. Consolidated Communications, a top 10 fiber provider in the United States, is executing on the biggest growth plan in the company’s 128-year history to build fiber to 1.6 million new locations or 70 percent of its service area by 2025. So far, the company is on track to reach 1 million fiber passings by the end of 2022. Consolidated’s fiber expansion is providing gigabit broadband to rural consumers throughout America, and it delivers big benefits to wireless and wireline carriers. Increased fiber density and widely available broadband services will provide new carrier-class services to support the growing needs for connectivity and increased speeds everywhere. Continuing into 2023 and working to complete by 2025, Consolidated will offer 400-Gig DWDM services among core locations, expand its offerings of 100-Gig L2/L3 services into core locations and complete 10 Gig L2/L3 service capabilities to all locations on or near its network. “Fiber is our future and we’re committed to delivering scalable, network solutions to our wholesale customers,” said Brian Carr, senior vice president of Carrier Services at Consolidated. “Our ongoing fiber investment is providing added capabilities for Consolidated to continue to lead in providing wholesale transport services to wireless and wireline carriers, ISPs, data centers and hyperscalers across rural and metro communities throughout our service area.” Consolidated has grown from a Midwest regional telco to a top-10 fiber provider in the United States serving customers across 20-plus states over an extensive 60,000-mile fiber route network. p Visit Consolidated at Governor Square Room 14 or go to consolidated.com. FiberLight LLC, a fiber infrastructure provider with more than 20 years of experience building and operating missioncritical, high-bandwidth networks, announced the Hurst-Euless-Bedford Independent School District (HEB ISD), has signed a 20-year contract to continue its partnership with the infrastructure provider. FiberLight began working with HEB ISD nearly 25 years ago when the school district needed a fiber provider to service kindergarten through high school students across a 40-acre region in northern Texas. Over the years, FiberLight worked with HEB ISD to meet the needs of its school community as it expanded across new campuses and introduced next-generation technology– including a major upgrade that enabled the district to deliver cloud-based learning across 30 campuses. When the original agreement expired and the contract went to RFP, HEB ISD signed a new 20-year contract with FiberLight citing their consistent up-time, scalability and superior service in meeting the demands of a forwardlooking school community. “FiberLight and the district have been partners for well over 20 years,” said Scott Forester, Director of Technology at Hurst-Euless-Bedford Independent School District. “When we went out to RFP, one thing we looked at was the benefit of uptime. A large proportion of our infrastructure is cloud-based and hosted in the cloud, and without a solid foundation that our cable plant provides, we would be sunk. FiberLight’s 99.9 percent uptime is invaluable. All our scaling up has been seamless, and the backbone layer that supports our growth has been smooth and consistent. FiberLight has been excellent in getting that done.” HEB ISD uses a metro model that relies on FiberLight’s 10-gig backbone to connect to the district’s internet provider and delivers ethernet pointto-point access to its 30 campuses. HEB ISD also relies on FiberLight’s 20-gig connection between its two data centers that mirror one another for redundancy and provide critical backup for the district. p Consolidated Communications Begins Growth Plan HEB-ISD Renews 20-year Contract With FiberLight
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy NTg4Njc=