St. Kitts-Nevis Cable Communications Ltd. Leverages DZS Velocity Portfolio to Bring World-Class FTTx Network and Services to Popular Caribbean Island

DALLAS, April 18, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — DZS (NASDAQ: DZSI), a global leader of access, optical and cloud-controlled software solutions, today announced that St. Kitts-Nevis Cable Communications Ltd. (The Cable), a leading local provider of internet and television services, is leveraging DZS Velocity Optical Line Terminals (OLTs) and DZS Helix Optical Networking Terminals (ONTs) to replace its existing legacy Hybrid Fiber-Coaxial (HFC) cable network with a world-class, all-fiber Gigabit Passive Optical network (GPON) capable of delivering gigabit broadband speeds. This network and services transformation is being enabled by longtime DZS partner Lucas Telecom, and will result in significantly increased broadband speeds, service turn-up agility and improved reliability for The Cable’s residential and business customers which include financial services, hospitality, small-to-medium sized enterprise, and educational and governmental institutions.

The new in-ground fiber infrastructure, which is currently being deployed across the island, included an initial deployment that was completed within six weeks. St. Kitts-Nevis Cable Communications Ltd. has worked closely with the local government and other key stakeholders to ensure that its new fiber-to-the-x (fiber-to-the-home for residential customers and fiber-to-the-premises for business customers) broadband network will meet the unique needs of the island’s residential and business subscribers, including the essential local hospitality industry.

“St. Kitts-Nevis Cable Communications Ltd. is very pleased to be working with DZS and Lucas Telecom to bring leading-edge, high-bandwidth broadband internet and video services to our residential and business customers” said Patricia Walters, CEO, St. Kitts-Nevis Cable Communications Ltd. “The high performance and robust in-ground GPON network that we are building will offer not only a better customer experience but also much lower maintenance, reduced downtime from power cuts and higher reliability, especially during power outages due to storms and hurricanes. To stay on the cutting-edge of services we are rolling out this new network very rapidly throughout the entire island of St. Kitts, and DZS and Lucas Telecom are stepping-up to meet our accelerated timeframe.”

“Internet access has become an essential service in homes and businesses around the world, and traditional cable operators are increasingly turning to FTTx to provide a more efficient and higher performance network infrastructure than HFC,” said Tom Carter, Chief Customer Officer for Americas and EMEA at DZS. “This transformation is even more critical in the Caribbean, where hurricanes can knock out communications networks for weeks, potentially leaving subscribers without cable or internet. DZS and Lucas Telecom are helping St. Kitts-Nevis Cable Communications Ltd. address this challenge head-on, with a rapid shift to not only a much more robust and reliable fiber network infrastructure, but one that can be easily upgraded to 10 gig XGS-PON technology in the future and beyond. We are proud to be working with both The Cable and Lucas Telecom to bring this powerful network to St. Kitts.”

“Our tagline at Lucas Telecom is ‘We make it work,’ and that’s exactly what we are doing for St. Kitts-Nevis Cable Communications Ltd.,” said Chris Lucas, CEO, Lucas Telecom. “There are many challenges to bringing high-performance GPON broadband services to Caribbean markets, and the flexibility and reliability of DZS solutions plus its strong engineering team are ideal to meet what can be very difficult island deployment demands.”

DZS solutions that St. Kitts-Nevis Cable Communications Ltd. is deploying include latest generation DZS Velocity fiber access core network and DZS Helix customer premises solutions, allowing residential triple-play and high-bandwidth business services.

As more cable and internet subscribers around the Caribbean and around the world demand symmetrical gigabit and multi-gigabit service levels so they can work from home, enjoy gaming and participate in videoconferencing and metaverse-type applications, forward-looking service providers like St. Kitts-Nevis Cable Communications Ltd. are evolving to high-performance network infrastructures that are standards-based and cost-effective to upgrade and manage to support new, bandwidth-intensive and low-latency services.

DZS offers a market-leading portfolio of Access EDGE, Subscriber EDGE, Optical EDGE and cloud-based solutions that are designed to create the ultimate subscriber experience. DZS technologies enable service providers to rapidly and cost-effectively transform their networks to become multi-gigabit “experience providers” today – while laying a future-ready foundation for in-place upgrades to 50/100-gig performance tomorrow. DZS platforms and software are standards-based, interoperable with many other vendors’ equipment, and specifically designed to be managed in multi-vendor environments.

To learn more about DZS, visit https://www.dzsi.com.

About St. Kitts-Nevis Cable Communications Ltd.

St. Kitts-Nevis Cable Communications Ltd. (The Cable) is a leading local provider of internet and television services to residents and businesses across the island. For more information, visit thecable.net.

About DZS

DZS Inc. (NASDAQ: DZSI) is a global leader of access, optical and cloud-controlled software defined solutions.

DZS, the DZS logo, and all DZS product names are trademarks of DZS Inc. Other brand and product names are trademarks of their respective holders. Specifications, products, and/or product names are all subject to change.

This press release contains forward-looking statements regarding future events and our future results that are subject to the safe harbors created under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These statements reflect the beliefs and assumptions of the Company’s management as of the date hereof. Words such as “anticipate,” “believe,” “continue,” “could,” “estimate,” “expect,” “forecast,” “goal,” “intend,” “may,” “plan,” “project,” “seek,” “should,” “target,” “will,” “would,” variations of such words, and similar expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements. Readers are cautioned that these forward-looking statements are only predictions and are subject to risks, uncertainties and assumptions that are difficult to predict. The Company’s actual results could differ materially and adversely from those expressed in or contemplated by the forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause actual results to differ include, but are not limited to, those risk factors contained in the Company’s SEC filings available at www.sec.gov, including without limitation, the Company’s annual report on Form 10-K, quarterly reports on Form 10-Q and subsequent filings. In addition, additional or unforeseen affects from the COVID-19 pandemic and the global economic climate may give rise to or amplify many of these risks. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on any forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date on which they are made. DZS undertakes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements for any reason.

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About Lucas Telecom

Based in eastern Paris, Lucas Telecom is a private company founded in 2013 by telecommunications experts, specialized in the field of triple-play Internet/Telephony/TV services for fixed operators. For more information, visit lucastelecom.eu.