Alcatel-Lucent

"Our most recent fresh idea: the first and only broadband service in the United States to offer BOTH residential and business customers speeds of 1 gigabit per second."Harold DePriest, president and CEO of EPB

EPB Fiber Optics, Chattanooga’s municipally-owned fiber-to-the-premises network, and Alcatel-Lucent today announced the only 1 Gigabit broadband service in the United States for residential and business customers is now available citywide in Chattanooga, Tennessee — powered by Alcatel-Lucent’s gigabit passive optical network (GPON) technology.  Harold DePriest, president and CEO of EPB explains what the new network means to the Chattanooga community.

The Power of Fresh Ideas

As one of the largest publicly owned utilities in the United States, EPB has had a single focused mission for more than 70 years – to help improve the quality of life for people in the Chattanooga, Tenn., area.  That means staying in tune with the ever-evolving needs of our customers and our community.

To do this we make use of a very powerful natural resource…the power of fresh ideas.  Because it’s through fresh ideas that we find new opportunities, new services and new solutions that support our customers now and in the future.

Our most recent fresh idea:  the first and only broadband service in the United States to offer BOTH residential and business customers speeds of 1 gigabit per second.

And it’s available right now to more than 100,000 homes and businesses community wide.  By the end of this year, 1 gigabit-per-second Internet speeds will be made available to the 170,000-plus homes and business in our 600 square mile, 9 county urban and rural customer service area. This makes Chattanooga 10 years ahead of and 10 times faster than the FCC’s National Broadband Plan, which calls for 100 Mbps speeds for 100 million households nationwide by 2020. The network will be powered by Alcatel-Lucent’s gigabit passive optical network (GPON) technology. (Click here to read press release.)

What will widespread 1 Gbps mean for residents and business in Chattanooga?  Here are just a few examples:

Dr. James Busch is a local Chattanooga radiologist who currently uses Fi-Speed Internet service and is looking forward to speeds of up to 1 gig.  He says even at his current speeds, each radiologist has increased their work flow by 27 percent – equivalent to having three extra doctors on staff.  With 1 gig, who knows what advancements an office like Dr. Busch’s could make.

And then there are the Smart Grid benefits.  By fall of 2012, all 170,000 homes and business within EPB’s service area will be connected to our 100% fiber optic Smart Grid.  This means a 40 percent reduction in customer outage minutes, increased electric power reliability and efficiency, and customer tools to manage energy needs, like an energy portal on your home computer or television. 

Plus benefits to education, software development, entertainment, and more – all of which are critical to economic development and helping attract enterprises ranging from large global corporations to small individual startups.

Chattanooga may not be a household name, but we’re a creative, dynamic community with a technology platform to engineer the 21^st century.  EPB’s advanced 1 gigabit service offers a unique opportunity to be a part of a living lab for next generation broadband applications.

And we can’t wait to see what kinds of fresh ideas are unleashed next!

Harold DePriest

Learn more about Alcatel-Lucent energy solutions, here.