Adtran expands cable MSO EPON reach via Sumitomo Electric agreement

Adtran has secured Sumitomo Electric’s EPON business, enabling it to enhance its engagement with cable MSOs selling fiber-based business services. 

Under the terms of the agreement, Adtran will assume Sumitomo Electric’s technology license and OEM supply for North America, South America, EMEA, Australia and New Zealand.

The Huntsville, Alabama-based vendor will also assume sales, customer relationship, distribution, support, manufacturing and development rights for Sumitomo Electric’s EPON solutions for its target markets outside of Japan and Asia.

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Adtran will leverage Sumitomo Electric’s dominant North American EPON market share and deep industry experience in engineering, support and sales functions. These EPON solutions will be integrated into Adtran’s SD-Access portfolio to further support Adtran’s ongoing commitment to serve the needs of its growing base of cable MSO customers.

Additionally, this deal will give Adtran another channel to sell its SD-Access portfolio to the Japanese and Asian market, including the Adtran Mosaic cloud platform, NG-PON2 and Gfast technologies.

Jay Wilson, SVP of technology and strategy for Adtran, said that the partnership accelerates the vendor’s movement in the North American cable market—one that is increasingly deepening the reach of their fiber networks to satisfy business services growth.

“These products come to Adtran with large, installed deployments within leading MSOs, including the top two North American cable broadband providers,” Wilson said in a release. “We will build upon Sumitomo Electric solutions to further accelerate the MSO market’s adoption of our open, programmable and scalable architectures, enabling them to accomplish their strategic network priorities.”

Adtran’s timing could not be better. Large cable operators in North America have been deploying EPON solutions to serve business customers with an array of high-speed IP-based Ethernet and increasingly cloud services.