May 22, 2008

Broadweave to replace fiber gateways on iProvo Network

Broadweave Networks today announced that it has completed its due diligence on the iProvo network and that it will be replacing the home gateways on the iProvo fiber-optic network.

Earlier this month, Broadweave announced that it has agreed to purchase the iProvo fiber-optic network, the largest municipally owned fiber-to-the-home network in the U.S. During the process of its due diligence on the network, Broadweave discovered problems with the fiber-to-the-home portals which are located at each customer’s home. Broadweave’s due diligence uncovered that the home portals have proven to be the cause of telephone service failures on the fiber-optic network—a problem that Broadweave vows to fix immediately upon closing the purchase of network.

While Broadweave intends to replace the home portals as a first item of business as the network’s new owner, Broadweave will also give the manufacturer a period of time to fix the problems. 

"If the manufacturer fixes the problems with the current version of home portals by implementing a fix to the firmware, then Broadweave will be happy to keep those devices on the network and will continue to purchase equipment from the manufacturer," offered Steve Christensen, Broadweave’s CEO. "Having said that, the home portals on the iProvo network today do not natively support SIP," Christensen added.

SIP (Session Initialization Protocol) is a protocol for handling telephone service on a packet-based network. Broadweave and most carriers delivering Voice over IP (VoIP) services have chosen to implement SIP. Broadweave relies heavily on SIP for delivering telephone service over its Fiber-To-The-Home networks.

Christensen has established a timeline for the fix, affirming that "Broadweave will give the manufacturer 90 days after Broadweave closes the purchase of the iProvo fiber-optic network. If the fix is in place within that timeframe, we will cooperate with the manufacturer to implement that fix. If the problem is not solved by that time, Broadweave will begin the process of replacing the home portals with a new manufacturer of our choice."

The iProvo network currently passes 36,000 homes with approximately 10,500 homes connected, each with its own fiber-optic home portal. As the new owner of the iProvo network, Broadweave will stagger the replacement of the equipment, focusing first on replacing home portals for customers who subscribe to triple-play and double-play bundles that include Broadweave’s telephone services.

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