Kranj, Slovenia, 8 December 2020 - Iskratel, a leading European broadband solutions provider and Belgian service provider Ulysse Group, have partnered to deploy an ultra-fast fibre-optic broadband network in Liège, Belgium.

The broadband network will provide services to thousands of residential and enterprise users in Belgium, with Iskratel providing a complete XGS-PON access solution including Optical Line Terminals (OLTs) and Customer-Premises Equipment (CPE). Iskratel will supply its SI3000 Lumia XG8 compact 1U XGS-PON OLTs, as well as its Innbox X22 ONTs and Innbox E80 home gateways in dual-box setup at customer premises to provide 100% guaranteed Service-Level Agreements (SLAs) to Ulysse Group’s customers.

Users will have the ability to fully exploit Ulysse Group’s infrastructure of data centres, physical or virtual servers, cloud infrastructure, security, voice services, Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and other applications, and will have access to broadband services via the wholesale model, with data rates up to 10 Gbps. Ulysse Group is focused on extending its networks to better meet evolving consumer demands and remains the provider of complete infrastructure for innovative solutions.

"We are delighted to work together with Iskratel, a responsive and trusted partner that we can rely on in the most demanding of circumstances and our collaboration outlines the growing ambition to offer 10 Gbps broadband access to our direct and wholesale customers," said Gauthier Delfosse, Managing Director at Ulysse Group. "We strive to remain at the forefront of technological developments and continue to build on our past triumphs such as being the first provider to offer SDSL, provide Ethernet fibre technology for the last mile, and integrate services with network security in Belgium."

The preparation and testing of the greenfield project were performed in record time, despite the prevalent challenges presented from the Covid-19 pandemic.

"Ensuring everybody has access to broadband services is critical, especially during unprecedented times like these where internet connectivity has become the lifeline to millions of people," said Svjetlana Kalaba, Director of Business Unit Broadband at Iskratel. "This partnership with Ulysse Group presents a golden opportunity for Iskratel to bring enhanced ultra-broadband services to Belgium as we see the number of greenfield XGS-PON deployments increase and 10 Gbps fibre access begin to take off."