Adtran has acquired two of CommScope's fiber access products, enabling the vendor to take advantage of the cable market’s push to deploy fiber-based technology to consumers and business customers. Financial details of the deal were not disclosed.
Through this acquisition, Adtran gains two major fiber-based network components: Active EPON and 10G EPON and CommScope’s Radio Frequency over Glass (RFoG) product line. By acquiring the CableLabs DOCSIS Provisioning of EPON (DPoE) certified EPON products, Adtran will now sell, support and develop the Active EPON and 10G EPON product platforms for its growing cable MSO customer base.
While cable is deploying fiber to the premises (FTTP) in targeted communities, Adtran can sell the RFoG solution to cable MSOs that allows to deliver fiber-based services while leveraging existing HFC-based back office network elements to rural and low-density greenfield deployments.
But this is not just a simple grab of a new product line. Adtran said that it plans to integrate them into its Mosaic family of SDN solutions in order to “help MSOs migrate to a more open, programmable access environment.”
While Adtran has a presence in the cable market, this acquisition will immediately give the vendor a set of products and new relationships with major cable MSOs that are either planning, or are in the process of rolling out FTTP services to their customer base.
Charter, for one, agreed to build out fiber to 2 million homes as one of the provisions it has to satisfy to get approval of its two-part acquisition of Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks.
Tom Stanton, CEO of Adtran, told FierceTelecom in a previous interview that it continues to see more cable interest in fiber-based solutions.
“There’s not a single major or even minor MSO that isn’t looking at deploying PON technology typically in the 10 Gig vein,” Stanton said. “They’re already doing it today for business and even in residential. In any Greenfield market, you’re going to see them deploy PON today. If you think about the deep fiber initiative with DOCSIS 3.1, you’re pushing the node out to get that higher speed and buying yourself some time to recoup your capital.”
For more:
- see the release
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