Irving, Texas // 2005-09-13

PacketFront's premier customer Mälarenergi Stadsnät wins ‘Most Advanced FTTP Network’ award

Robert Kjellberg, CEO of Mälarenergi Stadsnät

PacketFront, the leading provider of open access FTTH (fibre-to-the-home) and broadband aggregation solutions, today announced that one of its most successful Swedish customers, Mälarenergi Stadsnät, was named the ‘Most Advanced FTTP (fibre-to-the-premise) Network’ by Broadband Properties Magazine in the USA.

Mälarenergi Stadsnät (Mälar Energy City Network or MSN) is the largest open access triple play broadband fibre network in the world, operating over 50,000 ethernet connections across the city of Västerås, located 100 kilometres west of Stockholm. Harnessing PacketFront’s award-winning BECS™ control and provisioning system, in combination with PacketFront’s purpose-built broadband routers, MSN is able to automate the creation, deployment, provisioning and management of multiple services over any combination of last mile technology.

In 2000, the city of Västerås tasked its community-owned power utility, Mälarenergi, to build an open access broadband fibre network in order to provide its citizens with all the benefits of next generation networking. Today, MSN already reaches over 30,000 homes and 1,800 businesses, as well as schools, public offices and health centres in Västerås and will eventually have over 50,000 residential and 5,000 business customers connected by its completion in early 2007.

With the network offering over 60 unique IP services from more than 20 different service providers, MSN's open access service has revolutionised the way local businesses operate and grow, by enabling them to choose TV, telephony and high-speed Internet services from different providers at the click of a button. As a result, almost 600 new companies have established themselves in Västerås over the past two years. In addition, users are now reaping the benefits of their initial investments in the network in that, for example, the costs for telephony and high-speed Internet have been cut in half.

Service providers also benefit greatly from MSN’s open access operations. Prior to construction of the Stadsnät, if a service provider wished to provide services to customers, they either had to rent very expensive lines from the ILEC to each and every customer or they had to build and operate a network themselves. Now, if a service provider business wants to provide a service across the network, they simply work out a business arrangement appropriate for the service with MSN, either by paying a flat fee, by agreeing to a revenue share or deploying bandwidth metering.

"Our network is sunk cost," said Robert Kjellberg, CEO of Mälarenergi. "Our challenge both financially, and from an economic development perspective, is how do we encourage as much use of the network as possible? That is success - maximising use of the network. Success is not based on how we limit the bandwidth traversing the network. That would be failure."

"We are extremely proud of both Robert Kjellberg and Mälarenergi in receiving this Most Advanced FTTP Network award," stated Martin Thunman, CEO of PacketFront. "PacketFront has been working with Mälarenergi for better than three years now, and it’s great to see others acknowledging what we’ve known about them for a long time. They are on the cutting edge of broadband service delivery and are very deserving of this award."

Perhaps one of the most interesting statistics about MSN is that they are delivering such amazing numbers in terms of services and subscribers, yet only have a total of 16 full-time employees. PacketFront’s service automation plays a big role in controlling MSN’s network operational costs. Says Kjellberg, "Without PacketFront’s ability to automate the delivery of services, we simply could not have engaged in our business model. We tried manual provisioning and it simply proved too expensive operationally."

"We’re pleased to present this award for the Most Advanced FTTP Network to Robert Kjellberg and Mälarenergi," stated Steven S. Ross, Editor-in-Chief of Broadband Properties Magazine. "We’ve looked at hundreds of FTTP projects over the years, and Mälarenergi is clearly at the forefront of broadband technology and delivering services and capability well beyond what is available to the rest of the world. It also is a model of what broadband can do as an engine of economic growth. A well conceived, well run fibre network today is like a railroad or port was to newly industrializing Europe."

PacketFront’s automated broadband solution will be on display at numerous exhibitions this fall, including the Broadband World Forum in Madrid, 3-6 October.

About the Cornerstone Award
Originally established in 1989 as the Diamond Tier Awards and presented as recognition of achievement to companies providing cable services to the MDU industry (apartments and hotels). The Cornerstone Awards have been expanded to include and recognize achievements in broadband and telecommunications for all communities and municipalities, including residential multifamily (apartments, campus housing, active adult communities) and planned communities (multi-home developments, renewed urban areas). Each year, a committee of industry leaders, analysts, and writers vote to bestow these Cornerstone Awards to companies or individuals whose accomplishments of the previous 12 months they felt are deserving of special recognition.

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. Today, 30,000 households are 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. 1,800 companies in Västerås are connected along with the community’s schools, administration, companies and care centres.

Related links:

Mälarenergi Stadsnät