In Pigeon, Mich., people try to live up to the motto: The good life in a small town. If high-end mobile communications are on the list of things that makes life good, then Agri-Valley Communications is doing its part.
The company’s subsidiary, Agri-Valley Broadband, Inc., will be the first in the U.S. to roll out LTE technology in a regional, rural deployment using 700 Mhz spectrum.
In addition to selecting Nokia Siemens Networks to provide LTE infrastructure, including core and radio elements and network management, Agri-Valley selected Bridgewater Systems for its Home Subscriber Server and Policy Controller.
Agri-Valley will deploy Bridgewater’s Evolved Packet Core 500, which includes the HSS and Policy Server. This will help Agri-Valley launch LTE broadband services to its under-served areas and support subscriber and service modeling functions, roaming, and quality-of-service management. It will support over-the-air provisioning of subscribers, devices, and on-demand service models and the delivery of personalized services, including nomadic and casual usage services.
Agri-Valley will roll out LTE in all of its 40 counties in the northern part of Michigan's Lower Peninsula within the next three to five years. Ed Eichler, president and CEO of Agri-Valley Communications, said the company selected the Bridgewater EPC 500 because it is the industry’s most complete integrated LTE control plane solution and it allows Agri-Valley to rapidly deliver nomadic broadband data services to subscribers.
David Sharpley, senior vice president of Bridgewater Systems, said Agri-Valley is a first-mover in delivering high speed LTE broadband services to rural areas and early success such as this is giving Bridgewater significant momentum in the 4G market.
In addition to being parent to Agri-Valley Broadband, Agri-Valley Communications is parent to Pigeon Telephone Company, an independent local Exchange carrier, and Thumb Cellular, a cellular telephone and 3G Internet Service Provider to Michigan’s “Thumb area."
