DENVER, Oct. 19 -- WINfirst has agreed to buy $800 million in equipment, software and services from Lucent Technologies in a move to build a fiber-to-the-home residential network. WINfirst will also pay another $200 million for data switching equipment from Avaya Communication
We are building an entirely new, fiber optic network capable of breaking the 'last mile bottleneck' and Internet logjams that are currently frustrating residential customers, said Jim Vaughn, chairman and CEO of WINfirst. After a careful review, we chose Lucent as our strategic partner because they provided the unique combination of advanced technologies and networking experience to create and deploy a network capable of delivering our futuristic broadband vision today.
Engineers at Bell Labs have developed two products for WINfirst's network. The first is a Network Demarcation Unit that terminates the fiber connection from outside of the customer's home while sending and receiving voice, data and video traffic over the network with a laser. The unit is linked to the second product developed by Bell Labs, the Residential Ethernet Gateway, which is located inside the customer's home and connects to their PCs and telephones.