(WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) — The US Department of Agriculture’s Rural Development Program has accepted Infinera’s (www.infinera.com) ATN metro edge platform as suitable for deployment under the USDA Rural Utilities Service (RUS) telecom programs.
The USDA’s Rural Development Telecommunications program provides loans and grants to support the extension of broadband networks into rural areas and to support distance learning and telemedicine initiatives.
According to optical networking systems provider Infinera in its Friday announcement, the RUS listing will help telecom companies building rural networks under the RUS program take advantage of the simplicity, flexibility, and ease of operations of Infinera’s new ATN metro wavelength division multiplexed metro edge platform, which was introduced last month as a managed solution with the benefits of both Infinera’s optical networks architecture and submarine connectivity.
“RUS listing is an important milestone for the ATN, as it will make it easier for small, rural telecom companies and other broadband consortia to deploy the ATN and take advantage of its powerful advantages in speed, simplicity, and flexibility,” Infinera product applications director Paul Morkel said in a statement.
The RUS programs have significantly expanded this year by President Obama’s American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, which appropriated $2.5 billion to the RUS, out of a total broadband stimulus budget of $7.2 billion, to extend broadband networks to unserved and underserved communities nationwide.
A compact and scalable platform, the Infinera ATN platform offers flexible configurations to simplify and accelerate network deployment. It has been designed to offer best-in-class density and power consumption, and to support all metro transport services, including Ethernet, SAN, SONET/SDH, OTN and video services. Seamless integration with the Infinera DTN platform enables an end-to-end Infinera network to deliver ease of operation, capital expenditure savings, integrated bandwidth management, and the power of a single network management system.
Infinera has been wisely pursuing government certifications for its solutions, helping it deliver services to the lucrative government sector, as well as assuring private companies that its solutions are fit for highly demanding and secure use.
Earlier this month, the Infinera DTN was approved for Department of Defense (www.defense.gov) network deployments after passing extensive conformance and interoperability tests with the US Defense Information Systems Agency’s Joint Interoperability Test Command (jitc.fhu.disa.mil).
