Adtran is unveiling at NXTcomm a pair of new broadband loop carriers, or BLCs, aimed at bringing broadband and packet-based voice services to rural areas. The equipment vendor also is promoting the Ethernet-over-copper gear it unveiled last month.

One of the products Adtran is announcing is a BLC designed for rural areas with between 100 and 200 lines. The new 5006 BLC is meant to be a replacement for the legacy digital loop carriers Advanced Fibre Communications sold to independent telcos.

AFC did a great job seeding the independent market with that product,” said Kevin Morgan, marketing director for Adtran. But that gear needs an upgrade for IPTV and fiber access deployment. And after Tellabs acquired AFC in 2004, it began devoting more time to Verizon and less to rural telcos. The five-rack-unit 5006 is designed to snap into the same space that the AFC gear occupies now.

Like the Total Access 5000 multiservice access platform Adtran unveiled last year, the 5006 can interface with existing Class 5 telephony switches using a GR-303 gateway that packetizes voice between the remote terminal and the end user. Future versions of the products, which will be released near the end of this year, will be equipped with session initiation protocol, or SIP, for voice-over-IP services.

“Our customers are not demanding [SIP] just yet,” said Eric Vallone, product management director for Adtran’s carrier networks division. “The lion’s share are not really ready since they have a massive base of legacy gear.”

This week, Adtran also is unveiling the 1124P outside plant (OSP) BLC. The 1124P is basically an extrapolation of the concept behind Adtran’s previously released OSP DSLAM, a briefcase-sized, 24-port box designed for deployment in a variety of locations, such as poles and pedestals.

Using a pair-gain method, the 1124P is designed to bring voice and DSL service to remote areas where the existing copper loops are dedicated to providing traditional telephony service, packetizing the telephony service in the process. In a wire center with 25 pairs of twisted copper lines reaching out to customers, the 1124P uses 16 pairs to transport eight HDSL-4 lines and uses eight pairs for line-powering and one pair for monitoring integrated modems. With repeaters, the system has a range of about 80,000 feet, Adtran said.

Adtran also is using the trade show to promote the ability of its Total Access 5000 platform, when combined with the Ethernet-over-copper gear it unveiled last month, as a way to allow carriers to quickly deploy Ethernet-over-copper services throughout the entirety of their network footprints.

“Carriers never start central office buildouts [of Ethernet-over-copper gear] because they can’t hit 100% of customers from day one,” Vallone said.

Adtran’s solution uses its new 800 series Ethernet-over-copper network termination units along with eSHDSL “slices” in the 5000 and existing DS-1-based and HDSL-based remote terminals. The idea is to leverage existing network infrastructure to extend the reach of Ethernet-over-copper to all parts of the network without having to wait for extensive technology upgrades to remote terminals.