Calix announced that it will acquire Optical Solutions, Inc., the recognized industry leader in gigabit passive optical network (GPON) deployments. The addition of Optical Solutions' standards-based, field-proven GPON products to the Calix portfolio of access solutions creates a market-leading access powerhouse. According to Infonetics Research, Calix and Optical Solutions occupy the #1 positions in their respective markets. In the second quarter of 2005 Calix claimed the top slot for broadband loop carrier (BLC) shipments for the eighth straight quarter while Optical Solutions continued its overwhelming lead in FTTP GPON deployments.

The acquisition of Optical Solutions by Calix delivers a number of key benefits to service providers. First, it provides a field-proven solution addressing rapidly growing GPON FTTP deployments today. The acquisition also yields a full line of standards-compliant optical network terminals (ONTs) that address residential, business, and multi-tenant applications. It accelerates GPON availability on the widely deployed Calix C7 multiservice access platform (MSAP). Finally, it delivers a wide range of expertise dealing with commercial FTTP deployments.

According to Calix president and CEO Carl Russo, "As service providers deliver a broader set of information, communication, and entertainment services, they are employing diverse broadband access technologies to provide the needed capacity and functionality. Among these, GPON is rapidly becoming a strategic choice. Bringing together these two high-growth companies allows us to deliver solutions to our customers that fully address this diverse range of approaches."

Optical Solutions president and CEO Mike Dagenais adds, "Joining Calix, a bellwether in the broadband access market, makes enormous sense for Optical Solutions. Together, with over 70 production IPTV deployments and more than 175 revenue-generating FTTP customers among our joint installed base of 300 service providers, we are able to deliver a wide range of field-proven solutions."

To date, Calix has shipped over 1.2 million ports on more than 6,500 C7 platforms into 190 service providers throughout North America. Minneapolis-based Optical Solutions, with over 140 customers serving close to 100,000 FTTP subscribers, has more production GPON deployments than all other suppliers combined.