Calix announces the acquisition of Ericsson Fiber products division, including the EDA1500 GPON Family.

Calix acquired the Fiber Access Assets division of Ericsson and both companies have implemented a global resellers agreement for their products. This augments their current product portfolio with GPON (Gigabit Passive Optical Network) equipment, technology, software and IP.

GPON is critical to providing sufficient capacity to support video in addition to voice and data.

In the residential market space, carriers have recognized the exponential growth and demand for advanced services to support smart TVs, multiple simultaneous high-definition streams and third-screen usage for internet access while viewing. It is also becoming more prevalent that homes with poor cellular coverage are using microcell towers (see related article, Microcells Boost Your Local Coverage ) to connect calls using their data lines rather than over the air.

“We would like to welcome our new fiber access customers from around the globe to the Calix family,” said Carl Russo, Calix president and CEO.

Discussing integration of the new technologies from Ericsson with the existing Calix offerings, he stated, “The EDA1500 GPON solution expands what we believe to be the industry’s most advanced fiber access solutions portfolio, and we look forward to working closely with our new customers and through our preferred partnership with Ericsson to bring Calix broadband access innovation to communications service providers worldwide.”

The Ericsson deal follows nearly 18 months on the Calix merger with then-competitor Occam Networks. CEO Carl Russo had commented in February, 2011, “The combination of Occam and Calix can be summed up in one word: Acceleration”.

Russo elaborated that, “By combining Occam Networks’ expertise in IP and Ethernet, Calix’s strength in fiber access, and both companies’ experience in copper access, we believe this merger will accelerate our pace of innovation within the now expanded Calix Unified Access portfolio. We expect that our innovation will in turn accelerate our customers’ ability to meet the emerging needs of the broadband subscriber, while also making communications service providers more efficient. We are extremely excited about this combination, and look forward to extending a warm welcome to the hundreds of new customers who are now joining the Calix family.”

Calix started as a voice and broadband data provider for exchanges in the rural and non-metropolitan markets. Initially all connections were over copper wire lines, but later expanded to include fiber optics as well.

According to Calix, they now supply access solutions to 18 of the top 20 U.S. incumbent local exchange carriers (ILEC), including CenturyLink, Frontier, and Windstream. Calix also provides solutions to many top multi-system operators (MSO), including Cox Communications. Overall, there are more than 1000 customers who in turn server over 50 million subscribers.

For more information, visit the Calix website .