Stockholm // 2005-04-12

Mälarenergi Stadsnät chooses PacketFront´s ADSL

The cooperation between PacketFront, the world leader in FTTH technology and next generation broadband aggregation, and the trendsetter in the Swedish broadband market, Mälarenergi Stadsnät AB, continues. The latest news is that Mälarenergi Stadsnät will add PacketFront’s ADSL2+ solution to the ongoing roll-out of the community network in the city of Västerås.

Mälarenergi Stadsnät AB is a community owned company, whose business idea is to build and operate the open access broadband network in the city of Västerås, Sweden. The company does not develop any services of their own but keeps the network open for third party service providers. In Sweden, Mälarenergi is seen as having one of the most interesting service offerings on the market and there is an increasing interest in connecting to the new broadband network.

During the initial building phase, Mälarenergi focused on delivering fibre and Cat 5/6 to the households, a good and future proof solution. Over time, challenges of both economical and geographical nature have arisen, and to be able to keep the high roll-out pace and to build economically justifiable, the company has decided to complement the system with PacketFront’s ADSL2+ solution. In this way, rural areas or places where the fibre does not yet reach can be connected to the community network. The ongoing roll-out of the network will determine whether this solution will be permanent.

"It feels like a natural step to implement ADSL now," said Robert Kjellberg, CEO of Mälarenergi Stadsnät AB. "To combine different access technologies, like fibre, Cat 5/6 and ADSL, and handle this with one provisioning system means that we can keep the costs down and at the same time use different access technologies."

"Mälarenergi Stadsnät is one of the most advanced broadband networks in the world with a fantastic service offering," said Martin Thunman, CEO of PacketFront. "We are delighted to have been chosen also for their ADSL2+ addition for the more rural areas of Mälarenergi Stadsnät. Fibre will always deliver more possibilities than ADSL, but with PacketFront’s solution for ADSL2+ the similarities between the service offerings will be greater."

About Mälarenergi Stadsnät AB
Mälarenergi Stadsnät AB was founded in 2000 and is owned by Mälarenergi, a community owned utility company in Västerås, Sweden. The company operates the city of Västerås’ broadband network. In March 2005, 30,000 households were connected to Mälarenergi Stadsnät and the goal is to connect 50,000 households. Customers can choose between 20 service providers and about 60 different services. Over 2,000 companies in Västerås are connected along with the community’s schools, administration, companies and care centres. During the spring of 2005, IPTV and other multimedia services will be launched.