Zhone Technologies Chosen by Doylestown Telephone to Support FTTH Triple-Play and ADSL Deployments

MXK platform to give 4,000+ subscribers access to new triple-play services in Ohio

OAKLAND, Calif. — Zhone Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ:ZHNE), a global pioneer in FTTx network access solutions, today announced that it will be working on a new North American fiber project with Doylestown Telephone Company, a local exchange telephone service provider in Doylestown and surrounding Chippewa Township in Wayne County, Ohio since 1899. The operator will deploy Zhone’s industry leading MXK™ multiservice access node (MSAN) to enable triple play services for its customers using Gigabit Passive Optical Network (GPON) and Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line (ADSL) network technologies.

After the completion of a two-month trial in March 2011, Zhone’s MXK solution will allow Doylestown to deliver affordable and reliable high speed Internet access, VoIP and video services to its customers. Both Radio Frequency (RF) and Internet Protocol (IP) video over fiber work seamlessly for Passive Optical Network (PON) or point-to-point Active Ethernet with the MXK, making it the right fit for this deployment. Smooth transitions during network upgrades are essential, and Zhone has extensive experience ensuring that reality for its customers and, subsequently, their subscribers.

“Our more than 4,000 residential and small business customers continue demanding more and more bandwidth. We knew we needed a solution to address not only current bandwidth requirements, but future upgrade needs as well,” explained Tom Brockman, president of Doylestown Telephone Company. “We chose Zhone for its superior scale, effective network management capabilities and system flexibility to support multiples services in the same chassis. We were especially impressed with the cost savings this solution provides us – and our customers.”

In order to easily upgrade its existing network, Doylestown chose Zhone’s MXK Optical Line Termination (OLT) card, zNID™ Optical Network Terminals (ONTs) and Zhone EZ Touch Provisioning™ system. Support for the high density 8-port GPON OLT card on the MXK was critical to Doylestown. Zhone has leveraged deep experience in managing the complexity of multi-service access to build the industry’s most comprehensive portfolio of FTTx solutions. The MXK design in particular aligns well with Doylestown’s specific field requirements to provide optimum cost efficiency and maximum service differentiation, especially when combined with zNID GPON ONTs.

The widespread system capabilities of Zhone’s MXK platform benefit both Doylestown and its subscribers, including utilization of up to one gigabit capacity in the home and the ability to support the extreme bandwidth demands generated by multiple high-definition television (HDTV) screens, high definition digital video recorder (HD-DVR) content and video streaming within the home. The future-proof design of the MXK minimizes customer impact and installation time during the rollout of both current services and new advanced services that may be added in the coming years.

“The North American footprint of Zhone’s MXK continues to grow as a result of significant new projects we’ve recently announced with Myakka Communications, Rochester Telephone and others,” explained Brian Caskey, chief marketing officer for Zhone. “Operators are increasingly reliant on the Zhone Management System (ZMS) and the EZ Touch Provisioning solution. We are honored that Doylestown has also chosen to work with us in achieving their broadband goals and we anticipate a valuable partnership moving forward.”

The ZMS provides management support for the multi-service networks Zhone supports. The client-server architecture uses proven industry standard components such as an application server framework and a relational database to provide a robust platform for Doylestown and its customers. ZMS automates complex, tedious and error-prone tasks, thereby raising network productivity, improving efficiency and reducing operating costs for Doylestown. As an extension of the ZMS, Zhone EZ Touch is a next-generation carrier-class network management and provisioning solution that reduces recurring operational expenditure (OPEX) by minimizing truck rolls and manual subscriber-specific features and, effectively, automating the service provisioning functionality.

Zhone has deployed over 1000 of its fully redundant, carrier-grade all-IP MXK platforms with more than 100 service providers globally. Featuring industry-leading density, scalability and switching capacity, the MXK is the industry’s first terabit access concentrator and provides non-blocking capacity of up to 3,600 100 Mbps GPON subscribers or 360 1G Active Ethernet subscribers.