Pannaway Gives AFC-48 Cabinets New Life

By Paula Bernier

Pannaway Technologies Inc. now offers a retrofit, triple-play solution for the tens of thousands of AFC-48 cabinets out there in telecom networks. The product, called SCN-RetroCAB, is 60 percent less expensive than completely replacing the cabinet and buying a new housing and related gear, according to the company.

Kevin Brown of Pannaway says the vendor can outfit the AFC-48 cabinets with CAT5 wiring, a rectifier or line power, and access equipment to deliver a variety of services, including primary line VoIP and IPTV, to up to 48 subscribers. The solution includes backhaul transport scaling from 1 to 10gbps.

Service providers either can send the cabinets to Pannaway for the retrofits, or Pannaway can go to the cabinets for the upgrades, Brown says.

The SCN-RetroCAB is generally available today, with Coleman County Telephone Cooperative being among the first customers.

The company also this week announced the X-CAB, a line-powered enclosure that supports up to 96 port-selectable ADSL2+/POTS/IPTV or POTS-only (VoIP-enabled) combo subscribers. The X-CAB will be available in the third quarter.