Westman Communications Group, a leading edge communication company serving western Manitoba, has deployed Optelian’s LightGAIN 5140 DWDM system for the additional optical circuits needed to stay on schedule and on budget for their new service provisioning.
Westman Communications Group first came to Optelian in early April of this year with a challenge. They wanted to overlay existing and new services on a 200 km fiber span and they wanted to be in-service by the end of June. Westman had several unique requirements. Each fiber had to be bidirectional, but at 200 km, amplification was required. Also, at the far-end in Winnipeg, a remote management solution was required.
“We chose to work with Optelian, because of their scalability, technical support, quick delivery, and North American-based design and manufacturing,”
Optelian sales engineers worked closely with Westman operations managers to design a bidirectional amplified system to fit their exact specifications. Network design proposals were turned around within a day or two. Once the final design was approved, Optelian used its quick-turn, custom, passive optics to create new optical-circulator modules to support bidirectional amplification with LightGAIN’s existing optical fiber amplifiers (OFA) and dispersion compensation modules (DCM) modules and to get a system into Westman’s test lab in one week.
Westman’s final LightGAIN 5140 design transparently transports digital video, DS3, and GbE with room to grow to 20 bidirectional optical circuits. An Optical Service Channel (OSC) carries provisioning and monitoring communication over one of the optical circuits to manage the remote nodes from Westman’s operation centre in Brandon. Path protection switching was also implemented.
Once lab testing was completed and the order placed, Optelian delivered the full kit in four weeks. Since this was the first LightGAIN installation at Westman, a customer care team went on-location to provide hands-on training and installation assistance. Support continued after installation with power leveling and network monitoring done from Optelian’s Ottawa office along with assistance adding an additional circuit on available DWDM wavelengths.
“Now that we’ve been operational for a couple of months, I have to say LightGAIN’s simplicity, ease of use, and low power consumption are truly outstanding,”
About Westman Communications Group
Westman Communications Group, established in 1978, is a customer-owned cooperative providing service to 36 communities in Western Manitoba. Westman is a leader in communication and information technology products and services including cable TV, Internet, and fiber optics. Westman also owns and operates two local radio stations which broadcast throughout Western Manitoba.
