It was so, so difficult to narrow it down, but after giving ourselves a chance to review for the past month, we’re happy to share our top 9 highlights from Fiber Connect 2024.

1. Hosting 44 State Broadband Office representatives in the State Broadband Networking Lounge, on the Private Expo Hall Tour and announcing the new SBO FBA Membership Program
2. Hearing Assistant Secretary Alan Davidson reaffirm NTIA’s commitment to fiber broadband
3. Celebrating the accomplishments of the people that are part of our industry during the inaugural Awards Luncheon
4. Diving deep into the issues and challenges at the state level during The State Broadband Summit
5. Networking with 160 C Suite executives during The C Suite Forum
6. Witnessing the connections made and hearing the stories told during the Women in Fiber Luncheon
7. Connecting with folks from each of our 500+ member companies
8. Attending the standing room only Broadband Policy Symposium, and
9. Rocking out to the amazing music from Ryan Larkins, Emma Zinck, Clare Cunningham, Madeline Finn, Denitia, Golden West and Autumn Nicholas. If you enjoyed the music as much as we did, please enjoy the playlist we’ve created here: Fiber Connect 2024 Artist Playlist

The response has been overwhelmingly positive, but we know there is always room to improve. We have already begun working on Fiber Connect 2025’s conference program. If you’d like to stay up-to-date, remember to Save the Date for Fiber Connect 2025 – June 1-4, 2025.

Thank you again for joining us in Nashville!

The city has taken a similarly diverse approach to the different types of licensing agreements it has put in place for fiber. “We want to encourage full market coverage, competition, and availability. We have four license agreements for fiber for the city,” said Mark Leech, Director, Technology and Innovation (CIO) for the City of Albuquerque. “There’s a combination that covers different parts of the city with different business models. Some are supplying end-to-end fiber to the home and businesses. Others are putting fiber into the ground for an open access network, contracting out the last mile to others.”

Albuquerque hosts a vibrant arts community, hosting such events as the annual Balloon Fiesta. (Source: Vexus Fiber)

Albuquerque’s current economic base, anticipated growth, and dearth of fiber is attracting interest from numerous firms, including the privately-financed Gigapower open access fiber network provider, which is building projects in cities around the country. “One of our missions is to bring fiber to markets that really don’t have it. We feel we can bridge that gap and provide a different class of service than what they have today,” said Tom Kearney, Chief Operating Officer, Gigapower. “There’s definitely a need to be in that market to augment and provide different classes of service.”

The National Museum of Nuclear Science and History are just as tied to Albuquerque’s history and culture as its vibrant art scene. (Source: Doug Mohney)

Vexus Fiber, which has committed to covering 97% of the city, also sees a bright future for the city.
“The prospects of Albuquerque from an economic development perspective are just continuing to grow,” stated Kevin Folk, Regional Vice President of Operations Southwest, Vexus Fiber. “Intel is a big presence here. You’ve got Sandia Labs, the Air Force base, solar companies looking to move here. There are a lot of huge things. It brings more workers to the city that require better, higher quality [internet] connections.”

Currently Albuquerque has what Leech describes as an “adequate” standard of broadband, but notes that different parts of the city have been skipped over due to geographic and economic reasons. “We’ve got digital deserts, with no infrastructure there,” said Leech. “There are pockets all over the place. If you think about the whole of Albuquerque as a piece of chart paper, we have areas that are red squares without coverage, yellow squares that have more than one incumbent, and green is the best broadband we can provide. We want to cover Albuquerque in green.”

The lack of broadband in parts of the city is not only a macro concern to city officials but also one that affects city operations in a rapidly growing municipality. As the city purchases older properties and puts up new buildings as the government develops, selling off older properties they’ve outgrown, having broadband everywhere is vital to ensuring the IT needs of departments moving into their new facilities. 

Fiber is used in many typical ways by the city and to support some unique applications as well, tying back to the city’s embrace of the arts. “Within our portfolio, we provide fiber for traffic management for stoplights,” said Leech. “There’s an increasing push for our smart community efforts, that’s more about putting cameras in high-crime areas. We may have locations that have one connection and need to support six cameras. We’re working closely with law enforcement for those needs at that point.”

Various wireless services utilized by the city, including the LoRaWAN® Internet of Things protocol, generic Wi-Fi, and CBRS services to provide bridging connectivity to Wi-Fi hotspots are all supported by city fiber that it owns or, more typically, is leased from a third-party. Connectivity will follow around the city’s bus lines and a seven-mile urban Rail Trail designed to link Albuquerque’s downtown area to nearby neighborhoods, cultural destinations, entertainment districts, and its historic Rail Yards. One area where fiber isn’t going are the city’s arroyos, dry gullies outside the city that quickly fill with fast moving water when it rains, leading to flash floods that can endanger people and property. 

“We will use the fiber along the Rail Trail to monitor things like pedestrian flows, smart trash cans, and enable art being created through a collaboration with Central New Mexico Community College,” said Leech. “I’m really excited about the collaboration. We’re on our third cohort of artists. We put artists through IoT classes, and they build art that incorporates it. We put the pieces on the Rail Trail or in our city art gallery. It supports Albuquerque’s thriving and vibrant art community.”

Multi-state service provider Vexus Fiber believes in Albuquerque’s current and future potential, as well as that of the surrounding areas. The company is putting $250 million into covering the city, along with another $50 million going into the town of Santa Fe, roughly an hour’s drive north, and plans to expand to the adjacent township of Rio Rancho directly northeast. Albuquerque will be the company’s largest build to date, passing its projects in Texas and Louisiana. 

“This is going to be a five-, six-year build. Albuquerque has about 360,000 homes,” said Folk. “Our commitment to the city is 97% of the homes passed, so we’re talking 350,000 homes. We’ve already got over 2,000 homes passed and we are anticipating a ramp up of our construction activities to be in multiple locations throughout the city at the same time. Our goal is 20,000 homes passed by the end of the year, and we’ve already started our project planning for the next year.”

Vexus Fiber has been working with the city government for several years, obtaining its license two years ago and trying to smooth out the various requirements it needed in order to move forward with construction, including the volume of permits it needs as it increases its construction tempo.

“Albuquerque is a little bit different than some other markets that we operate in,” said Folk, compared to the company’s operations in Louisiana and Texas. “A lot more restrictions, permitting requirements. The city has had to figure out a permitting approval process with the amount of workload that we’re bringing to them and how they work. That took a little bit of time, it took a little bit longer as well with pole attachment permits.”

The service provider is deploying a combination of underground and aerial fiber, working with energy provider PNM for pole access in both Albuquerque and Santa Fe. “In Albuquerque, we’ll be on 40,000 poles,” said Folk. “That’s a lot of work for a company to ingest that resource load into their system. 

“We’re also very conscious of the impact [our construction] has on the city’s resources as well as the residents. We’re not tearing up roadways, we’re doing boring as well as aerial work, but it does have an impact on the communities, in the neighborhoods where we work. You’ve got to be mindful of that, we’re very conscious of that impact because you know, where we’re building these are potential customers for us.” 

Folk anticipates that Vexus will create around 150 new permanent jobs in Albuquerque and the company is now working to establish partnerships with community institutions and the larger businesses in town, such as Intel, NBC/Universal, Netflix, and Amazon, along with the Mesa del Sol master-planned community of 30,000 homes being built in the southeast corner of the city. 

However, Vexus faces a well-funded challenge from Gigapower, jointly owned and governed by AT&T and BlackRock investment management group. “We’re making a several hundred-million-dollar investment in the market,” said Kearney. “We keep it open-ended, but it’s close to several hundred million in Albuquerque holistically. Our minimum commitment to the city is to service 150,000 homes and businesses while constantly evaluating opportunities to increase and add to our build plan.”

Gigapower will offer services up to 8 Gbps symmetrical services initially using XGS-PON with the ability to scale upward to a minimum of 25 Gbps in the future. Construction will include a mixture of aerial and underground fiber deployment, leveraging PNM’s network of electric utility poles where available to increase speed to market. 

Access to PNM utility poles in Albuquerque and the surrounding region is key for deployment of fiber in the area. (Source: Vexus Fiber)

Kearney said Gigapower is very far along in its initial engineering and construction plans and expects to start breaking ground and placing fiber this summer. “We’re working side by side with the city, PNM, and other municipal partners for permitting.” 

Gigapower has two unique characteristics in its fiber builds in Albuquerque and other cities. First, it is an open access commercial wholesale provider and AT&T is its anchor tenant.  “We’ve had conversations with dozens and dozens of ISPs that are interested in partnering with us and we’ve had discussions with various service providers.” 

Other announced areas and cities Gigapower is competitively building out are Las Vegas; Chandler, Gilbert, and Mesa, Arizona; parts of Northeastern Pennsylvania, including Scranton and Wilkes-Barre; and parts of Alabama and Florida outside of AT&T’s current service areas, with company officials suggesting more announcements would be forthcoming in the future. 

Vexus says it is ready for competition in Albuquerque and feels some providers will not be able to deliver. “There are some big challenges for city resources as you bring more competition. You have four to five providers that want to build their own network of attachments to the poles, that means somebody’s going to miss out,” Folk said, with Vexus having an advantage by being first in the market for a city-wide build and working with local officials to scale up the permitting processes. “We feel that with our customer engagement, customer service, local technicians, and local footprint, we can compete against the big boys.” 

For example, AT&T planned to build fiber to 3 million homes in 2021, but a couple of months ago, it estimated it would get to only around 2.5 million, mainly due to supply chain issues. This is not a huge miss for AT&T, but it is still half a million homes, and with today’s growing remote workforce, there has never been a more vital need for reliable, high-speed internet.

New funding and training programs offer hope that supply chain and labor issues won’t stall fiber rollouts forever.

Rising Costs, Components Backlog
Supply chain woes currently are among the most frustrating roadblocks to fiber builds, leading to a nasty trickle-down effect. Rising costs of everything from meat to gasoline have plagued the U.S. over the last 18 months. The telco industry is not exempt. It starts with rising oil prices, which raises gas prices, which leads to higher freight and shipping costs for materials to make equipment. Those materials cannot be produced or assembled because of the increased wage demands and shortage of workers needed to do everything from get materials off docks to assemble and install fiber infrastructure.

The apparent shortage in chipsets, semiconductors and other components creates a backlog of work and delays in meeting buildout goals. The materials that make up components don’t make it to the manufacturers and therefore can’t be built. To remedy this, service providers, or the demand side, might consider looking to nontraditional suppliers that may be able to provide necessary components more quickly than their usual vendors. The vendors, or the supply-side, in turn should consider limiting part numbers.

Vendors can alleviate the backlog by providing parts or supplies that can scale (up or down) rather than satisfy a small or niche application. This will help consolidate inventory and materials, reducing time to market and leading to fewer supply failure points. For example, historically, tools that connect fibers came in a wide variety of types and sizes, in some cases to fit a service provider’s specific needs. Phasing out legacy tools and equipment will force service providers to upgrade toward more modern architectures and network components and potentially keep them on track with deployments.

Skilled Labor Shortages
The broadband industry is experiencing a significant labor shortage, but not because of the pandemic. The need is due to the lack of skilled workers to install fiber. It takes people to connect threads and perform installations, and without them, there’s a real possibility that the speed of rollouts will continue to be slow in the future.

New bills and government programs, such as the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund, COVID-19 relief as part of the American Rescue Plan Act, and the newly passed $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill, of which $65 billion is slated for broadband, will create thousands of jobs.

In addition, community colleges and veterans training institutions are working to provide courses that bring qualified individuals to the market, providing service providers and contractors with skilled labor. New training programs, such as the Fiber Broadband Association’s OpTIC Fiber Optic Technician certification course, can help fill the gap.

Lack of materials and labor is slowing down the speed of broadband deployment. It is a vicious cycle, but there is some light at the end of the tunnel. The newly passed infrastructure bill, state initiatives and a strong nationwide focus on workforce development offer hope for a turnaround that will make broadband more accessible to more people across the U.S.

To read this article on Broadband Communities, visit: https://www.bbcmag.com/community-broadband/the-vicious-cycle-of-the-supply-chain-in-fiber-broadband-is-an-end-in-sight. 

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“Bringing UTOPIA Fiber to Syracuse City remains extremely important for the future growth of our community,” said Mayor Mike Gailey. “UTOPIA Fiber has the track record to deliver on speed, capacity, and reliability, as we position our city to be competitive in the digital economy,” noted the mayor.

“We’re really excited to expand the UTOPIA Fiber network here in Syracuse City. UTOPIA Fiber brings choice for residents and businesses. When you have competition, it protects net neutrality, keeps prices in-line, and provides greater reliability,” said Roger Timmerman, Executive Director of UTOPIA Fiber. “Competition solves everything, and that’s what we’re all about,” he said.

In addition to providing fiber access to homes and businesses, UTOPIA Fiber will continue its longstanding partnership with the city to provide connections to schools and other community anchors. The network will add Smart City services like free public wifi, air pollution monitoring, and its EDWIN Project, an early-wildfire detection system to help save lives and property.

Including Syracuse City, UTOPIA Fiber provides fiber-to-the-home services in 17 cities and business services in 50, connecting communities to the fastest speeds currently offered in the United States. Residential speeds are offered up to 10 Gigabits per second (Gbps), while business speeds reach 100 Gbps. UTOPIA Fiber is a publicly owned Interlocal Agency that operates as an Open Access network. This means that UTOPIA Fiber builds the infrastructure and enables competition among private sector internet service providers (ISPs) via UTOPIA’s fiber lines.

Service maps, build-out timelines, and information on how to sign up for UTOPIA Fiber services in Syracuse City are available at UTOPIAfiber.com.

About UTOPIA Fiber
Created by a group of Utah cities, the Utah Telecommunication Open Infrastructure Agency (UTOPIA) is a community-owned fiber optic network that uses the Open Access model to promote competition by giving customers the freedom to choose which telecommunication services they want from competing providers. With fiber availability to over 130,000 businesses and residences in over 50 communities, UTOPIA Fiber is the largest—and widely considered the most successful—Open Access network in the United States, and enjoys the industry’s highest customer satisfaction scores. Since 2009, the agency has successfully designed, built, and operated nearly $350 million worth of fiber projects throughout Utah, all of which have been funded completely through subscriber revenue, at no cost to taxpayers.

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Medina Fiber provides fiber-based solutions, including Gig-speed internet and phone services. Their buildout will take 3-4 years, consist of roughly 500 miles of fiber, and will pass over 50,000 homes and businesses in their service area. On Trac is an important partner in Medina Fiber in helping to meet their installation targets while also providing an excellent customer experience that boosts Medina Fiber’s reputation as the local provider. “While Lit Communities is a national brand, we built Medina Fiber to be the locally-operated brand to enhance the customer experience and generate economic development and jobs throughout the community. With partners like On Trac, who also hire locally, we aim to thrive at the local level,” says Ms. Bender. “It’s a community network first.”

Learn more about Medina Fiber at https://medina.litcommunities.net.

Learn more about On Trac at www.OnTracInc.com

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Legislation approved by the U.S. Senate last week provides $128,245,250 for Maine from the American Rescue Plan’s Coronavirus Capital Projects Fund. In addition to the funding for broadband, Maine’s five indigenous tribes will receive $167,000 under the same legislation.

Combined with the broadband funds Maine is projected to receive from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act that’s currently before the U.S. House of Representatives, the state is in line to receive hundreds of millions of dollars to boost affordable high-speed broadband access and narrow Maine’s digital divide, the office of U.S. Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, said in a news release Friday.

In a separate announcement, Gov. Janet Mills said: “This pandemic has laid bare the dire need for strong connectivity in every part of Maine, and this federal funding will be a tremendous boon to our efforts to expand affordable, high-speed Internet across the state.”

“With this federal funding, we will redouble our efforts to ensure that all Maine people and Maine businesses, regardless of zip code, are able to utilize the vital tool that is broadband to improve their lives and grow our economy.”

The funds will be used by the Maine Connectivity Authority, a new quasi-independent agency tasked with making high-speed Internet service available throughout the state.

‘Game changing for Maine’
Joshua Broder, CEO of Tilson, a Portland-based network deployment and IT professional services provider with a national footprint, told Mainebiz he expects the funding to have a huge impact in Maine.

“This federal broadband funding will be game changing for rural Maine, and will bring globally competitive broadband to tens of thousands of Mainers,” said Broder, who was honored as a Mainebiz Business Leader of the Year in 2018. “This is foundational for us building a modern economy and connecting all of us to education, work and health care.”

King, who co-chairs the Senate Broadband Caucus said the $128 million for broadband will create new opportunities for people throughout Maine, especially in rural areas.

“It is clear as day that a high-speed, affordable broadband connection is fundamental to participating in the 21st century economy,” he said. “Too many Maine families have been forced to go without that vital tool — watching economic opportunities disappear, struggling to access their education and missing on convenient ways to access critical health care.”

 “These American Rescue Funds, combined with the investments included in the Senate’s bipartisan infrastructure deal, are a major step towards ensuring that every Maine person — regardless of where they live — can access the opportunities provided by a broadband connection. My colleagues and I worked hard to include these funds in the American Rescue Plan, and I’m glad to see the bill will continue to meet the needs of Maine people.”

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As network operators look to deploy fiber to support a wider range of applications and deployment scenarios, the FieldSmart FiberFlex 3000 all-in-one design integrates fiber, power, and active equipment. The flexible design makes it the ideal active cabinet to help operators close the digital divide by supporting remote optical line terminals (OLTs) with passive optical network (PON) distribution, wireless base stations with fiber backhaul aggregation, and active network equipment with back-up power needs. The FiberFlex 3000 enables many emerging applications such as Smart City IoT, wireless 5G ORAN, and Metro Edge services that require powered elements such as compute processors, servers, and fiber aggregation be placed closer to the end users.

“Fiber deployments are scaling at record pace as operators look to leverage demand for the services and applications that are driving the economy forward,” said Nate Jacobsen, Product Manager for Outside Plant Products at Clearfield. “There is no “one size fits all” solution but the FiberFlex 3000 provides the density, scalability and flexibility service providers need so they can target any application, streamline service introduction and reach as many subscribers as possible.”

The FiberFlex 3000 features a 19- or 23-inch vertical equipment frame to provide 36 rack units (RU) for active electronics and passive equipment with no batteries, 30RU with one string of batteries, or 20RU with two strings of batteries. Measuring 72”H x 30”W x 36”D, this multi-use enclosure makes it easy to drop into any pad or vault mount option and accommodates both traditional telco equipment (12” depth) and server blades (30” depth) with HVAC, heat exchanger or direct air cooling options. Each FieldSmart FiberFlex 3000 provides up to 864 internal fiber distribution ports for subscriber PON deployments, along with complementary splitter capacity, and accepts local AC power via the integrated AC Load Center equipped with a generator plug for back-up power. True to Clearfield’s craft-friendly modular designs, the open racks and cable entry ports with a removable plate facilitate ease of installation and field expansion.

More information on Clearfield’s FieldSmart FiberFlex 3000 can be found in this introductory video, the associated data sheet or at www.seeclearfield.com.

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About Clearfield, Inc.

Clearfield, Inc. (NASDAQ: CLFD) designs, manufactures and distributes fiber optic management, protection and delivery products for communications networks. Our “fiber to anywhere” platform serves the unique requirements of leading incumbent local exchange carriers (traditional carriers), competitive local exchange carriers (alternative carriers), and MSO/cable TV companies, while also catering to the broadband needs of the utility/municipality, enterprise, data center and military markets.  Headquartered in Minneapolis, MN, Clearfield deploys more than a million fiber ports each year. For more information, visit www.SeeClearfield.com.

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The StreetSmart Collector Box provides an interface between the PON wall box, typically located in the basement or off-site, to the wall box located on each floor, eliminating common congestion challenges in vertical pathway scenarios. This significantly reduces installation and repair times by reducing the amount of cable that installers must manage which helps accelerate deployment times and generate the greater revenue opportunity presented by fiber.

With 14,000 multifamily buildings completed in 2020, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, the business case for the full-fiber MDU/MTU is gaining traction as both residents and businesses rely on fiber broadband to support bandwidth intensive applications. Clearfield’s StreetSmart Collector Box removes the need for individual cable routing from each floor to the PON box by gathering multiple floors into a single box. From the Collector Box, a single fiber cable is routed down the vertical pathway instead of individual cables from each floor. A multi-fiber push-on connector (MPO) is then used to connect the Collector Box to the floor box for an easy, time-saving solution.

“The business case for full-fiber isn’t solely an amenity offered to tenants but is now an avenue for building owners to offer high-value services such as video surveillance, and partner with service providers facing real estate challenges in placing radios and small cells to accelerate 5G availability,” said Kevin Morgan, Chief Marketing Officer at Clearfield®. “By addressing one of the biggest hurdles of fiber deployment and management in MDUs/MTUs, we are preparing our customers to succeed in what is shaping up to be a booming fiber deployment opportunity for operators and building owners as they look to serve residential and retail customers and serve as a tower for fixed wireless and 5G services.”

The StreetSmart Collector Box is Telcordia GR-771 compliant, utilizes the standard 216 locking mechanism and supports up to eight MPO adapters. The swing out bulkhead separates the vertical cable from the horizontal runs which reduces accidental disruption of circuits. The box can be configured with a factory-installed cable assembly or plug-and-play with a customer provided assembly.

This solution will be featured at Clearfield’s booth #609 at Fiber Connect this week, July 26-28, in Nashville, TN. More information on Clearfield’s StreetSmart Collector Box can be found on this introductory video, the associated data sheet or at www.SeeClearfield.com.

About Clearfield, Inc.

Clearfield, Inc. (NASDAQ: CLFD) designs, manufactures and distributes fiber optic management, protection and delivery products for communications networks. Our “fiber to anywhere” platform serves the unique requirements of leading incumbent local exchange carriers (traditional carriers), competitive local exchange carriers (alternative carriers), and MSO/cable TV companies, while also catering to the broadband needs of the utility/municipality, enterprise, data center and military markets. Headquartered in Minneapolis, MN, Clearfield deploys more than a million fiber ports each year. For more information, visit www.SeeClearfield.com.

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While other broadband technologies, including fixed wireless and satellite, will also play key roles in bridging the digital divide and connecting increasing more homes and businesses, fiber has been a dominant force by offering higher speeds, easy upgrades, and lower latency. In fact, the number of U.S. homes passed by all-fiber networks now exceeds 50.6 million; with more than 22.5 million homes connected to all-fiber networks for at least one service (internet, television, or telephone). The 2021 North American forecast predicts a U.S. fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) investment of more than $60 billion in the next five years!

As we emerge from a year of lockdowns and isolation, Alianza is excited to hit the road again for a conference dedicated to helping accelerate the deployment of fiber broadband. Join us at Fiber Connect 2021 next week. We have new customers to announce, new full-stack cloud communication solutions to share, and data to how service provides can providers roll out residential and business VoIP services quickly, easily, and profitably — while maintaining full control over network usage, branding, pricing, and customer relationships.

Alianza Accelerates Network Monetization for Fiber Broadband Service Providers

Despite a lack of travel and events, 2020 was one of Alianza’s strongest years for adding new customers, many who sought an established cloud communications provider to partner with in order to expand their customer base and grow beyond what rural broadband builds are capable of.

By cloud sourcing VoIP services, providers can accelerate time-to market, avoid lopsided business models with high upfront costs and long paybacks, and free up valuable resources to focus on strategic endeavors.

Unlike conventional wholesale VoIP solutions, our full-stack cloud communications platform leverages the latest virtualization technology, bringing all the benefits of the cloud — web scalability, unrivaled service agility, and a pay-as-you-grow model — to your network. All the VoIP network elements that your business would normally need to buy, build and operate are virtualized, securely hosted in the cloud, and managed by Alianza.

As we prepare for Fiber Connect 2021 next week, we are announcing six new fiber broadband ISPs as customers including electric cooperatives, a municipality, and community owned network:

1. Beacon Broadband. A wholly owned subsidiary of Coos-Curry Electric Cooperative in Oregon is launching broadband, TV, and phone service to communities on the southern Oregon coast. They specialize in delivering High Speed Wireless broadband to homes and businesses to areas that have little or no broadband access.
2. Ciello. The ISP powered by San Luis Valley Rural Electric Cooperative has been delivering a broadband portfolio, including phone services, to the Valley’s rural communities since 2015.
3. DE Fastlink. Launched this year, the ISP division of Dixie Electric in Mississippi is bringing broadband and phone to more than 30,000 homes and businesses in its seven-county service area in Mississippi.
4. GigabitNow. With fiber broadband in communities in California, Oregon, Arizona, Washington, and Massachusetts, this ISP ditched its switch and upgraded their VoIP solution with our cloud to deliver a full communications suite to its residential and business customers. GigabitNow offers unique customized fiber internet solutions for cities, communities, multi-tenant buildings, and businesses of all sizes.
5. Hood River Electric Cooperative. Serving its members in Oregon with fixed wireless and fiber broadband for nearly two decades, the co-op is now adding VoIP services.
6. TCLPfiber. Traverse City Light & Power’s ISP launch last year with broadband and phone services and is building out to more areas of the city in the next few years.

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As networks expand and transform to meet tomorrow’s demands, new processes, tools and solutions are needed to address rapidly changing business and network needs. The comprehensive VIAVI fiber portfolio continues to evolve with a full range of essential instruments, systems and software required to address today’s fastest growing technologies and functional needs, providing end-to-end support for the construction, activation, monitoring and maintenance of fiber optic services.

New and enhanced elements of the VIAVI fiber portfolio include:

• OTDR 2.0 – The all new VIAVI OTDR solution, redesigned to deliver faster, more reliable measurements and user experience. A modern touch gesture interface and guided, automated workflow enables simplified real-time operation to improve job quality control and ensure operational goals are achieved, for technicians of any experience level. A modular design allows migration of fiber test capabilities across VIAVI platforms, including T-BERD®/MTS, OneAdvisor and CellAdvisor® 5G. This solution offers the most comprehensive range of fiber and service layer tests, from basic fiber certification to automated bi-directional characterization.
• SmartPocket V2 – Building on the popular VIAVI SmartPocket line, the SmartPocket V2 is a complete family of optical power meters, light sources and loss test kits for essential fiber testing, activation and troubleshooting. The SmartPocket V2 family allows service providers to improve technician speed and accuracy even as they deploy next-generation technologies.

“Since Corning invented optical fiber in 1970, we have been continually innovating fiber and connectivity solutions to transform today’s networks,” said Brian Rhoney, Director of Data Center Market Development, Corning. “As we enable providers to bring high-speed fiber closer to the end-user with next-generation technologies such as high-density cables, testing practices and tools also need continued transformation. We believe the latest fiber test solutions from VIAVI have done just that.”

“Service providers are under pressure to increase their fiber footprint, completing massive deployments – to homes, businesses, data centers and 5G cell sites – while striving to maintain quality of experience and reduce operational expenses,” said Koji Okamoto, Vice President, Fiber and Access Business, VIAVI. “The ability to capture faster, more reliable fiber test measurements with simple to use, automated solutions means that service providers can reduce contractor costs without sacrificing deployment pace or quality of experience, improving performance and operational efficiency for the life of the network.”

These solutions complement the most comprehensive fiber test portfolio in the industry, including PON/FTTx innovations for fiber monitoring (ONMS), construction/installation (Optimeter), and first-to-market certification of unbalanced PON architectures (PON OTDR).

About VIAVI

VIAVI (NASDAQ: VIAV) is a global provider of network test, monitoring and assurance solutions for communications service providers, enterprises, network equipment manufacturers, government and avionics. We help these customers harness the power of instruments, automation, intelligence and virtualization to Command the network. VIAVI is also a leader in light management solutions for 3D sensing, anti-counterfeiting, consumer electronics, industrial, automotive, and defense applications. Learn more about VIAVI at www.viavisolutions.com. Follow us on VIAVI Perspectives, LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube and Facebook.

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“Clearview Blue Cassettes are the core building block of nearly every product within our FieldSmart® fiber management system portfolio,” said Johnny Hill, Clearfield’s Chief Operating Officer. “By increasing the density of our Clearview Blue Cassette, we are furthering the ability of all FieldSmart products to reduce the costs associated with managing and deploying fiber optic networks in a variety of scenarios.”

The number of fiber connections needed in today’s market continue to multiply. Network operators are challenged to fit as many fibers in tight spaces as possible. The new CS Connector option provides 12-48 ports of connectivity, using 1.25 mm ferrules to provide 33% more density than the traditional LC connector cassette. Additionally, this doubles the density for Clearview-enabled wall boxes, panels, cabinets and pedestals.

Clearview Blue Cassettes offer multiple configuration options, tool-less installation, in-cassette buffer tube/ribbon slack storage, and front access-only designs. Clearview Blue is a six component, tool-less system made up of a top cover, splice tray, buffer tube/ribbon slack storage, cable assembly tray and adapter plate. Parts snap together to support desired application requirements. Providing a plug-and-play (MPO/MTP) configuration for any network environment, dual MPO/MTP access is available on either side of the cassette. Clearfield also offers CS Duplex patch cords to support the new configuration.

More information on Clearfield’s Clearview Blue Cassette and connector deployment options can be found on the associated data sheet or at www.seeclearfield.com.

About Clearfield, Inc.

Clearfield, Inc. (NASDAQ: CLFD) designs, manufactures, and distributes fiber optic management, protection and delivery products for communications networks. Our “fiber to anywhere” platform serves the unique requirements of leading incumbent local exchange carriers (traditional carriers), competitive local exchange carriers (alternative carriers), and MSO/cable TV companies, while also catering to the broadband needs of the utility/municipality, enterprise, data center and military markets.  Headquartered in Minneapolis, MN, Clearfield deploys more than a million fiber ports each year. For more information, visit www.SeeClearfield.com.

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“Upstream capacity is becoming increasingly important,” Armstrong Director of Network Strategies and Technologies Michael Scardina said on the latest episode of Fiber Broadband Association’s Fiber for Breakfast series. “Granted, COVID-19 did bump some of this forward, the bottom line is this: There are so many devices in the home–IoT, AR, VR and more–so many new bandwidth uses that we simply didn’t have in the past.”

Armstrong is well recognized as America’s 11th largest MSO, serving more than 400,000 homes across Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia, Kentucky and Maryland with a total of 310,000 residential, business and enterprise broadband internet customers.

Armstrong previously utilized Hybrid Fiber Coax with DOCSIS 3.0, but when consumer focus shifted from downstream to upstream, Armstrong realized they had to make a change. While DOCSIS 3.1 is a lower cost in the short term, Scardina explained, it’s a stopgap solution at best. Both mid-term and long-term evaluations show FTTH is the lower cost and longer life solution.

Now in year four of Armstrong’s long-term strategy for meeting customer bandwidth needs, Scardina said Armstrong relies heavily on GPON and XGS-PON deployments with ADTRAN’s TA5000 platform.

For some customers, Armstrong said that GPON fits their needs perfectly, but for the high-bandwidth consuming customers, he noted a need for a smooth shift to accessing those higher speeds.

Traditionally, providers can deploy GPON and XGS-PON networks side-by-side to provide more flexibility to the network that better suits customer demands. However, that approach requires deploying two discrete OLTs.

“It’s mostly a one-and-done approach, but there are still hurdles that providers would need to overcome,” Greg Luhman, Business Development Manager at ADTRAN said on Fiber for Breakfast. “That’s where ADTRAN comes in.”

Armstrong was able to simplify its deployment process of XGS-PON over its existing GPON network through the use of ADTRAN’s Combo PON technology.

“Utilizing Combo PON allows providers to combine these technologies, XGS-PON and GPON, through one hardware footprint–a single OLT port,” Luhman explained. “In a sense, you’re deploying two networks at the same time.”

With that approach of overlaying XGS-PON to the GPON network, Luhman said providers can utilize the network as they see fit, for example keeping residents on GPON and providing XGS-PON as a higher-end option for enterprise customers.

Luhman and Scardina said the benefits speak for themselves:

• As prices continue to erode, the optics for XGS-PON are well along the cost-value curve as Combo PON delivers on 50% less capex.
• Looking at usage over the years, Combo PON extends the lifespan of the network by 25 to 80%.
• Combo PON consumes 66% less energy and takes up 75% less space.
• A more flexible network means happier customers.

Scardina took a minute to explain that last point: “If you have one customer on a street that is a very high bandwidth consumer, you can easily shift them over to XGS-PON to better fit their broadband needs without causing any disruption to your other customers in the area.”

When asked why the move to XGS-PON is relevant now, Armstrong’s Scardina noted that the upstream capacity we talked about is not going down.

“The time for XGS-PON is now,” Scardina stated. “Find a way to do it that makes financial sense. Spend the capex once and be prepared for when customer demands increase. Be proactive, not reactive.”

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