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COMPTEL PLUS Fall 2015 Business Expo
COMPTELPlus
|
Monday, October 19, 2015
Beka Publishing,
www.bekapublishing.com30
DAY 1
NGN’s President and CEO Named President of
Fiber Network Owners Alliance (FNA)
Beka Publishing
Berge Kaprelian
President and CEO
Neil Ende
General Counsel
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Business Accounting
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Berge Kaprelian
Group Publisher
berge@bekapublishing.com
Tara Seals
Editor-in-Chief
COMPTEL
PLUS
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a@bekapublishing.com
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Art Director
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Photos by
© The Photo Group 2015
N
GN, a member-owned telecom coopera-
tive in North Georgia, has announced that
president and CEO Paul Belk has been
named the president of Fiber Network Owners
Alliance (FNA). FNA is a strategic alliance of orga-
nizations focused on aligning their fiber network
resources for the purpose of providing a unified
platform to create business and operational
advantages for its members.
FNA connects 29 charter members resulting in
more than 70,000 combined network miles, spanning
28 states. With the majority of its charter members
made up of small tomid-sized networks, FNA
provides a“checks and balances”competitive effect to
larger organizations within the industry. FNA charter
members strive to provide the residents in the areas
they serve with reliable service, local jobs and other
economic benefits that would not otherwise exist.
NGN was one of the founding members of FNA.
Belk explained that NGN saw the value that FNA and
the connection to its members would bring in terms
of potential partnerships with other fiber networks.
“Since its inception, FNA has made great strides
in supporting regional networks across the country,
and I am honored to have the opportunity to
further the organization’s continued growth,” said
Belk. “FNA is unique because it offers alternative
broadband delivery into areas where there are few
options for broadband solutions. Members have
access to fiber infrastructure that can provide excel-
lent service delivery for carriers into these areas.”
NGN is a member-owned cooperative founded
in 2009 and operating more than 1,600 miles of
fiber optic infrastructure from its headquarters in
Clarkesville, Ga. Its digital optical network provides
solutions to carriers, service providers, and tech-
nology‐reliant businesses and organizations across
the Southeast. NGN is unlike most telecommunica-
tions corporations, as it is a corporation of coopera-
tives, owned by its members, including Habersham
Electric Membership Corporation (HEMC), Blue
Ridge Mountain Electrical Membership Corporation
(BRMEMC) and NGN Connect.
Belk joined NGN as president and CEO in 2011
and has since grown the initial 1,100-mile fiber
network into the 1,600-mile network it is today.
Belk also played a pivotal role in the creation and
launch of the Education Exchange, Georgia’s only
regional 10-gigabit private cloud for exclusive use
by school systems. In 2014, he was recognized by
the Association of Telecommunications Profes-
sionals (ATP) with the Technology Service Provider
Leadership award.
o
‘FNA connects 29 charter
members, resulting in more
than 70,000 combined
network miles, spanning
28 states.’
L
ightower Fiber Networks has expanded its
footprint with OptiSwitch Carrier Ethernet
2.0 (CE 2.0) service demarcation and first-
mile aggregation platform from MRV Communi-
cations (Booth 809).
This was done to support an increased
number of fiber connections and bandwidth-
rich services as Lightower grows its service
footprint. Lightower has used the MRV solution
for several years to deliver premium Carrier
Ethernet services.
“The OptiSwitch platform offers the effi-
ciency, intelligence and reliability that Light-
ower requires as a leading service provider to
thousands of enterprises, including financial
institutions, data centers and carriers in some of
the nation’s largest cities,” the companies said.
“The OptiSwitch portfolio offers carrier-grade
solutions to business enterprise customers by
supporting business-critical applications.”
Lightower utilizes the OptiSwitch platform at
the customer premises for the delivery of scal-
able Carrier Ethernet and metro-area transport
services. When Lightower looked to expand its
network throughout the Northeast, mid-Atlantic
and Chicago metro regions, it selected the MRV
solution because it features a compact, high-
density, low-power design to fit the needs of high-
capacity metro networks, and enables automated
service provisioning and SLA verification capabili-
ties to guarantee quicker deployment times.
“Lightower is committed to supporting the strict
requirements fromorganizations like financial insti-
tutions, healthcare organizations, and cloud and
content distributors,”saidDamon Fortune, senior vice
president of engineering for Lightower.“As we grow
our network, wewill continue tomake value and
operational excellence a priority, whilewe help our
customers ensure optimal application and network
performance. Strategic partners allowus to leverage
the right network solutions at a competitive price.
And, withMRV solutions at the customer premises,
we can ensure our customers’critical data is delivered
without latency and at the highest quality.”
MRV’s OptiSwitch platform also helps Lightower
optimize its network infrastructure with support
for multi-dimensional E-Line, E-Tree and E-Access
services, and enables Lightower’s flexible External
Network to Network Interface (ENNI) with multiple
virtual connections over physical interfaces. The
flexibility streamlines connectivity options to crit-
ical regional and international landing points and
makes interconnection more seamless.
“MRV solutions arebuilt to enable serviceproviders,
network operators, cloudproviders anddata centers
todomorewith less andextend the value of their
networks,”saidScott St. John, senior vicepresident
of global sales and service forMRV.“The intelligent
OptiSwitchplatformmakes it easier for network
providers, like Lightower, to expand the reachof their
metrofiber and accelerate servicedeployments, while
ensuring anoutstanding customer experience.”
o
Lightower Expands Network with MRV