Barbourville Utility Commission and Russellville Electric Plant Board Each Select Calix E7 to Proliferate Advanced Broadband Services Throughout Their Communities

June 15, 2010
Kentucky Municipal Utilities Leverage Calix E7 ESAP and Broad ONT Portfolio to Move "Fiber Forward," Bringing Video and Broadband Access to over 10,000 Combined Subscribers

PETALUMA, Calif., Jun 15, 2010 (BUSINESS WIRE) --Calix (NYSE: CALX) today announced that the Barbourville Utility Commission (Barbourville UC) and the Russellville Electric Plant Board (Russellville EPB) have selected the Calix E7 Ethernet Service Access Platform (ESAP) and the Calix 700GX/700GE ONT portfolio to bring advanced video and broadband access to more than 10,000 subscribers in rural Kentucky. These municipal utilities are moving "Fiber Forward" in their respective communities, leveraging the E7 and 700GX/GE family of optical network terminals (ONTs) to deliver both gigabit passive optical network (GPON) and Active Ethernet technologies to residences and businesses. Subscribers of these services will be able to receive up to one gigabit per second (Gbps) delivered directly to the premises, over which these municipalities plan to deliver services like IPTV, traditional radio frequency (RF) cable services, and ultra high-speed broadband services.

A municipal utility, Barbourville UC is located in the southeast corner of Kentucky, and provides more than 6,000 customers in Knox County with cable, Internet, water and electric services. By deploying the Calix E7 ESAP and 724GX and 721GE ONTs, Barbourville UC can leverage its existing cable headend across the same fiber to the premises infrastructure that delivers advanced broadband services. As Josh Callihan, director at the Barbourville UC, explains, "The Calix Unified Access portfolio allows us to run our cable TV system over fiber using standards-based GPON - we can now provide quality HDTV and ultra high-speed Internet access more reliably and at a fraction of the cost of pulling hybrid fiber coaxial (HFC)."

Also a municipal utility, Russellville EPB provides electric and Internet services to more than 4,000 subscribers in the city of Russellville, located in southwestern Kentucky. Looking to upgrade its infrastructure to meet the burgeoning service demands of the community, Russellville EPB conducted an extensive search for a "future-proof" fiber access infrastructure. The scalability, non-blocking architecture, flexibility, and broad portfolio of Calix ONTs were key factors that distinguished the Calix fiber access solution from eight other competitors. Equally as important, however, was the ease of deployment of the Calix system. As Jeff Borders, Russellville EPB operations manager, explains, "The Calix engineer walked in with an E7 under his arm and had triple play running within the hour. The ease of installation and configuration are critical to a utility stepping into new services, and were important criteria for us."

"We were torn between Active Ethernet and GPON," said Ryan Coleman, Russellville EPB systems analyst. "But when we saw the Calix auto-detecting ONTs supported both without a truck roll, it eliminated any concerns we had over technology. With just the move of a fiber jumper, we can deploy either GPON or Active Ethernet out of the same optical line terminal (OLT) and ONT to any given customer premises, providing us with optimal network flexibility and significant long term operational and economic advantages."

"Municipal utilities like Barbourville and Russellville EBP are taking the initiative to leverage their existing subscriber relationship and deliver the new utility service of the 21st century - fiber-enabled broadband," said John Colvin, vice president of field operations at Calix. "The long term investment horizon of municipal utilities is a perfect match for access infrastructure like the Calix E7 and 700GX/GE family of ONTs, which were designed with the bandwidth headroom and architectural flexibility to meet what we expect to be the service needs of communications service providers for a decade or more. We are proud to be working with Barbourville UC and Russellville EPB to bring advanced entertainment and broadband services to these bandwidth-hungry communities in rural Kentucky, and plan to be feeding the broadband needs of their subscribers with the equipment they are deploying for a long, long time."

About Calix

Calix is a leading provider in North America of broadband communications access systems and software for copper- and fiber-based network architectures that enable communications service providers to connect to their residential and business subscribers. Calix has shipped over six million ports of its Unified Access Infrastructure portfolio to more than 500 North American and international customers, whose networks serve over 32 million subscriber lines in total.

This press release may contain forward-looking statements that are based upon management's current expectations and are inherently uncertain. Forward -looking statements are based upon information available to us as of the date of this release and we assume no obligation to revise or update any such forward-looking statement to reflect any event or circumstance after the date of this release, except as required by law. Actual results and the timing of events could differ materially from current expectations, based on risks and uncertainties affecting the Company's business. The reader is cautioned not to unduly rely on the forward-looking statements contained in this press release. Additional information on potential factors that could affect Calix's results and other risks and uncertainties are detailed in its report on Form 10-Q for the fiscal quarter ended March 27, 2010, filed with the SEC on May 7, 2010, available at sec.gov.