Sprint Communications Expands its Ethernet over Copper Services

After seeing “notable growth throughout the Carolinas,” Sprint Communications has announced that it is working to expand its Ethernet over Copper (EoC) footprint in its North and South Carolina territories. While the CLEC has stated it will focus mainly on South Carolina, service will also be expanded in North Carolina and Georgia.

This EoC fan-out will accompany the current fiber-based Metro Ethernet service expansion Sprint Communications is conducting for medium and large-sized businesses. The company’s Business Elite Ethernet service delivers small and midsized businesses speeds ranging between 3Mbps and 10Mbps, and leverages the Overture Networks’ EoC equipment it purchased from Hatteras Networks.

In an interview with Fierce Telecom, Sprint Communications’ VP of Strategy, Product Management and Business Development, Greg Guerra, stated that following the successful South Carolina launch of its Business Elite EoC service, the company made the decision to increase its volume at the lower end of the market. Since then, Guerra asserts the CLEC has “doubled that footprint this year with Overture.” Guerra added that Sprint Communications has a wonderful multi-site customer base, but had not really spent “a lot of energy on that smaller business customer, and that’s the primary focus of the EoC roll out.”

In addition to the U.S. market extension, Sprint also declared plans to develop its Ethernet service into additional international regions in 2012. As a result of the improved Ethernet access footprint, both businesses and wholesale partners of Sprint’s DIA and Global MPLS services will benefit from an increased number of “opportunities to reduce network costs for high-bandwidth locations and simplify the complexity of maintaining multiple types of technologies.”

About Sprint Communications

Sprint Communications is a CLEC jointly owned by 11 South Carolina independent ILECs. Established in 1991, Sprint Communications offers a comprehensive range of services and solutions to businesses both large and small. With a goal of building long term partnerships with its customers built on trust, flexibility and service, Sprint Communications enables its clients to continue to manage their core business, while Sprint handles their technology needs.

About Overture

North Carolina-based Overture Networks is the preferred Carrier Ethernet edge and aggregation partner to over 450 service providers and enterprise customers worldwide. Overture Networks solutions streamline operational costs and multiply revenue by cost-effectively enabling high-capacity Ethernet services over any physical media – TDM, copper and fiber.
For more information on Sprint services in your area, give one of our professional account managers a call today!

Ethernet Over Copper Service

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Ethernet over Copper Carriers Hit by Copper Thieves

In one of our earlier blogs we addressed the various benefits of employing Ethernet over Copper (EoC) services. Aside from providing more bandwidth for your dollar, Ethernet over Copper offers easier management via greater visibility into the network, and are much simpler to deploy and provision than legacy services. Moreover, when compared to a T1 line, the install time of an EoC circuit is significantly faster.

However as more businesses discover the many benefits of EoC services, causing its popularity to grow, carriers are reporting they are being hit time and again by copper thieves.

In one of the more recent cases, Windstream Communications, who services both residential and business customers, reported $25,000 worth of cable stolen from a location in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma. The theft interrupted landline and wireless calls, as well as broadband access and communications to emergency services for hundreds of customers.

Scott Morris, a spokesman for the carrier stated that Windstream is offering a $25,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the copper thief/thieves in Oklahoma. The carrier is also offering the same reward for information leading to arrests and convictions in any thefts that take place its additional territories. While Morris was unable to say how many thefts the carrier has endured, he did note that it as a "significant problem across [Windstream’s] footprint."

Just a few weeks before that, AT&T reported that around 300 feet of copper lines were stolen in Fresno, California. The provider is now working with the local Sheriff’s department to track down and catch the criminals. Fresno is just one of the many central California cities that are being targeted by copper thieves; according to reports, at least one specific street in town has been the target of copper thieves more than 6 times. In some instances, the telephone poles have fallen down during the act.

Copper thieves pose a great danger to not only themselves while committing the crime, as many of the telephone poles are in close proximity to active power lines, but they also pose a great danger to the public, because by bringing service down they impede a customer’s ability to call for help in the event of an emergency. Add to that the logistical and financial nightmare they create for carriers, and it’s no surprise why many are now offering large rewards for any witnesses that offer tips leading to a copper thief’s conviction.

Ethernet over Copper services

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