Corning officially announced that Verizon is purchasing its ClearCurve drop cable products for commercial deployments of FiOS services.
Until now, Verizon had been field testing ClearCurve. CED reported Verizon’s interest in the product last summer (story here).
ClearCurve is a new singlemode optical fiber that can be bent at much more severe angles, with little or no performance loss, than fiber long in use. Fiber is typically terminated at an outdoor wall and spliced to copper; the new fiber makes it more practical to extend fiber into multiple-dwelling units (MDUs) and commercial buildings.
Verizon’s territory includes the densely built Northeast, but until now it has not been targeting MDUs because of the physical limitations of traditional fiber. This should open up a greater potential market for FiOS.
“This is the year that Verizon moves into high gear in deploying FiOS TV and FiOS Internet to apartment buildings, condos and similar multiple-dwelling units,” said Claire Beth Nogay, SVP and chief network officer for Verizon Telecom.
“Corning’s bendable optical fiber cable is particularly valuable in the tight spaces typical of these sorts of buildings,” Nogay continued. “ClearCurve rugged drop cable is an initial product in what promises to be a family of specialized bendable fiber products we expect to use across our network going forward.”
Separately, Corning said it has exceeded its analyst estimates for first-quarter profit. The company will report its Q1 financial results next week.
More Broadband Direct:
• TWC escalates HD war with HD on Start Over
• Insight ramps up broadband speed to 20 Mbps for some customers
• Verizon gets bent about Corning fiber
• BigBand Networks posts 4Q loss of $13.8 million
• Solekai delivers test tool to CableLabs