Ottawa's Meriton Networks Inc. has picked up a major contract in Western Canada to supply Alberta's largest electric transmission provider with its wave-length networking technology.

AltaLink Management Ltd. will use Meriton's technology to help connect its offices in the Calgary area with a high-speed network. If the deployment works out well, Meriton could win additional business to connect all of AltaLink's locations across the province.

Meriton's hardware combines switching and transmission of data in a single box, rather than the two commonly used by service providers. The integrated unit reduces costs for service providers, provides more flexibility in their network and increase capacity up to eightfold.

Meriton's other customers to date have been in the utility-telecom market. So-called u-telcos are power companies attempting to commercialise a broadband backbone built to monitor their power grids. Ottawa is home to one such u-telco--Telecom Ottawa. Meriton signed up Telecom Ottawa as its first Canadian customer in March. Three others in the U.S. were signed up in June.

"Deploying a Meriton high-speed network has given us a resilient, high-capacity network that is flexible, scalable and most importantly manageable," Clinton Struth, senior telecom engineer for AltaLink, said in a statement. "It was a very positive experience for our team, and we believe the results give us the reliability and scalability we require in our market."

AltaLink's high-speed network was built by SNC Lavalin ATP, the systems integration unit of the Canadian engineering and construction firm.

Meriton president Mike Gassewitz said the year has been so good the company is poised to post a profit as early as end of next year after having secured its first revenues only last spring.