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FREMONT, Calif., March 2, 2009 - Actelis Networks® today announced the company is keeping traffic running smoothly in California’s state capital with its Ethernet over copper solutions. Like many cities in the U.S. looking to install new IP-based traffic controllers and cameras that improve road safety and reduce traffic congestion, the City of Sacramento needed to first upgrade its legacy telecommunications network to provide more sophisticated monitoring and control capabilities. With Actelis’ Ethernet over copper products deployed, Sacramento simply leveraged the city’s existing copper infrastructure and delivered fiber-like performance across its vast network.

“We selected Actelis because it is the leader in the Ethernet over copper space,” said Ryan Billeci, a telecommunications engineer for the City of Sacramento. “The choice was made because of the proven robustness of the Actelis solution, and because the hardened switch is able to operate in harsh environments. Equally as important was the ability of the Actelis products to exceed our performance requirements, which provides us long-term investment protection by creating extremely reliable and much higher bit rate pipes.”

Actelis’ Traffic/ITS solution delivered the necessary bandwidth over Sacramento’s extensive outdoor copper infrastructure, just as traditional Ethernet solutions can do within a building, according to Eric Vallone, vice president of marketing at Actelis.

“For cities like Sacramento, this is a huge advantage, because it means they can leverage the investment in their copper infrastructure to extend their existing Ethernet LAN across the whole district of jurisdiction,” said Vallone.

Connected to Actelis’ intelligent Ethernet access products, Sacramento’s new IP-based cameras are already making a significant difference to citizens in the area even if they are not directly aware. For example, if a traffic signal fails, technicians at the City of Sacramento’s Traffic Operations Center are now notified much faster, making repairs quicker and more cost effective.
“These systems are going to be invisible to the public,” said Shad Bennett, head of traffic engineering and operations for the City of Sacramento. “It’s all about efficiency and detection. Technicians can now tune the timing of the signals in response to changing conditions in order to optimize traffic flow and minimize congestion. The system’s sophisticated monitoring and control capabilities are also attracting interest of other agencies within the district.”

This ability to optimize traffic flow is crucial, according to Bennett, because congestion has increased enormously in the Sacramento area over the last decade. Actelis’ Traffic/ITS solution is resulting in decreased time on the road and traffic congestion, which is helping to reduce the city’s carbon footprint since cars are not idling as long.

Visitors to Actelis’ website, www.actelis.com, can view a real-world deployment in action. The City of Roseville, Calif., a suburb of Sacramento, has already deployed Actelis’ Traffic/ITS solution to help with traffic monitoring and video surveillance.

Other Infrastructure Projects “Ready to Go”
Along with cities like Sacramento and Roseville, Actelis continues to work closely with a number of other municipalities and enterprises, with deployments for Traffic/ITS and video surveillance applications across major metropolitan U.S. cities. Actelis’ emergence in the Traffic/ITS marketplace supports the company’s ongoing commitment to work as a trusted partner and supplier with its customers so they fully understand the tax incentives through President Obama’s proposed Universal Broadband Plan, as well as funding options, which will be made available to them as a result of initiatives passed during last year’s November elections. These government funds will be limited to supporting infrastructure buildouts and upgrades for traffic improvement.

In addition to President Obama’s proposed Universal Broadband Plan, the U.S. Conference of Mayors recently released the second in its series of reports on infrastructure projects that are “ready to go” in cities across the nation. Commonly known as the “Main Street Mayors Report,” they define these as projects that can be started quickly after funding is received, and generate the significant numbers of jobs that are needed to strengthen the economies of our metro areas and our nation as a whole. According to the report issued last December, more than 400 cities of all sizes in all regions of the country claim there is a total of nearly 11, 400 infrastructure projects “ready to go.” These projects represent an infrastructure investment of more than $73 billion that would be capable of producing an estimated 847,000 jobs in 2009 and 2010.

As Actelis’ Charles Clawson, director of enterprise sales at Actelis who is working closely with Sacramento, Roseville and other government agencies across the country, points out: “Cities are waking up to the fact that they can easily and economically deploy new IP-based services over their existing copper-based networks, which in turn can make their cities safer, more efficient, and even greener. Most metropolitan areas have tens of miles of fiber in the ground, but can leverage their thousands of miles of copper,” added Clawson. “We believe that California’s state capital is a great example of how cities can implement President Obama’s proposed Universal Broadband Plan and Main Street Economic Recovery program.”