WiredInUSA September 2019

Ciena will supply the Northwest Colorado Council of Governments (NWCCOG) in support of its Project THOR regional middle- mile fiber network. The initiative will connect around 400 miles of deployed public and private fiber infrastructure to help bring broadband services to over 230,000 state residents. The project is funded by grants from the Colorado department of local affairs and contributions from local government. NWCCOG is a voluntary association of county and municipal governments. Through Project THOR, NWCCOG aims to improve access to broadband services and lower the cost. Around 85 percent of the fiber required to achieve these goals is already in place through fiber networks deployed by organizations such as the Colorado Department of Transportation. Improving service reliability will also be a major goal. “Whenever there’s a fiber cut it impacts not only consumers in our towns, but cellphone carriers, public safety centers, schools, hospitals, andother critical services,” stated Nate Walowitz, regional broadband director, NWCCOG. Ciena will supply its Waveserver Ai packet-optical transport platform and 5170 Service Aggregation switch; its Blue Planet manage, control and plan (MCP) software will provide end-to-end lifecycle operations. Graybar, a partner in the Ciena Partner network, will assist in Project THOR’s deployment while Mammoth Networks will operate the network once the roll-out is completed.

Broadband initiative

wiredInUSA September 2019

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