October 5,2010, OTTAWA -- Enablence Technologies Inc. , a leading supplier of fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) equipment for triple-play residential and business services and optical components and subsystems for access, metro and long-haul markets, has deployed a new all-optical next generation access network in the Municipality of Riba-Roja d'Ebre to help drive economic development and attract new employers.

Riba-Roja d'Ebre is a small community in Spain's Terres de l'Ebre region. The municipality operates a legacy CATV infrastructure deployed in the 1990s used for television broadcast. Eager to upgrade this infrastructure to roll out advanced video, data and voice services, Riba-Roja d'Ebre investigated the costs of upgrading its existing CATV build to DOCSIS 2.x standards. However, after evaluating the relatively high network aggregation costs due to the small size of its market, and necessary investments in new equipment, the municipality determined that its needs were best served by replacing its coax plant with fiber to the home and business (FTTx).

Riba-Roja d'Ebre turned to Enablence and its local partners TFO and apfutura to deploy an advanced all-optical Gigabit Passive Optical Network (GPON) network. In the first stage of the network deployment, the municipality is connecting its subscribers with 10 Mbps symmetrical bandwidth. As the growth of the subscriber base drives down aggregate connection costs, the connectivity speeds available on the network will rise. In addition to rolling out advanced video and data services to residential subscribers, the municipality plans to build an industrial park and lever the high-bandwidth service capability afforded by its new fiber network to draw employers to the area.