ExteNet Systems, Carrier Rollout Rural LTE Service

July 12, 2016

ExteNet System is deploying 4G LTE equipment across rural New England for a carrier, Great Northwest Woods Wireless (GNW).

Under the agreement, ExteNet will function as the lead infrastructure provider for GNW, and will provide a turnkey solution consisting of its Distributed Evolved Packet Core (EPC) integrated with Nokia’s Radio Access Network (RAN) equipment, to support a variety of advanced wireless service applications.

One of the first applications is called “carrier wholesale,” where GNW will offer services on behalf of other carriers to extend their service footprint via the GNW infrastructure. ExteNet’s solution will allow GNW to host multiple carriers on a common infrastructure, which will deliver operational and economic efficiencies. As part of the “carrier wholesale” application, GNW is planning to offer seamless roaming service to Sprint customers across the northern New England region. Voice over LTE (VoLTE) and data roaming services for other carriers are expected to be added soon.

The distributed EPC functionality provides flexibility and enhanced performance to support a number of deployment options and use cases including: standalone rural networks, private and virtual private wireless networks, network expansion and wireless roaming, integrated LTE and Wi-Fi networks, neutral-host small cell networks and networks supporting the Internet of Things (IoT).