Ohio-based operator Horizon tapped Adtran to support its deployment of fiber to tens of thousands of new passings across its five state footprint over the coming years, selecting its 10G technology and intelligent software-as-a-service platform for the rollout.
Horizon serves customers across Ohio, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Indiana and Illinois with a network that essentially runs from Chicago to Philadelphia. Brian Riley, SVP of FTTP at Horizon, told Fierce it chose Adtran’s system because it will allow the company to provide different kinds of fiber services using the same kit as it expands beyond enterprise services to residential.
According to Riley, Horizon’s build is somewhat unique because it’s coming from a different starting point than most other operators. That’s because it cut its teeth in the fiber game “doing all the difficult stuff” such as enterprise and carrier services and mobile backhaul, and is now undertaking residential deployments. Others, by contrast, generally start with the residential build.
“Most of the providers who are out there doing fiber-to-the-home solutions are deploying mostly single office hosted PON networks with really no electronics in the field. And we’re kind of really building three networks in one. That really is because of the fact that we both operate a very B2B and carrier-centric fiber business as well as a residential-centric fiber-to-the-home business,” he explained. Adtran’s TA5000 kit will allow it to meet its goals around delivering multiple paths for resiliency, while supporting services ranging from Ethernet, residential and transport, he added.
Horizon CEO Jim Capuano recently told Fierce the operator is aiming to reach 11,000 passings within its ILEC footprint and 30,000 greenfield passings in 2022 and hit at least another 30,000 passings in 2023. Beyond that it’s hoping to ramp to around 100,000 passings per year.
All told, Adtran Head of Strategic Solutions Marketing Kurt Raaflaub said its TA5000 platform can support seven different fiber technologies, enabling operators to use it as a sort of Swiss army knife to target different business segments.
He added the deal with Horizon is just its latest in a string of customer wins, noting the company has been seeing “absolutely unprecedented” momentum in the market.
“We’ve seen personally as a company, you know, 100 new operators a year basically choosing Adtran for their fiber network,” Raaflaub said. “There’s more TA5000 platforms in the United States than any other platform. There’s over 60,000 of them. We have 500 different fiber providers using that platform because of the flexibility Brian talked about.”
In terms of supply chain hurdles, Raaflaub said lead times for chips and processors for its platform are currently north of 50 to 60 weeks. That’s not necessarily expected to change anytime soon, so Adtran is trying to work within those constraints and be honest and transparent with customers about the challenges its facing.
Adtran revenue in Q1 2022 rose 21% year on year to $154.5 million, with fiber access platforms revenue specifically up 61% year on year. However, it swung to a net loss of $1.1 million from a profit of $896,000 in Q1 2021. It is predicting Q2 revenue of between $165 million and $175 million.
The vendor announced a deal to merge with German counterpart ADVA in August 2021. Adtran’s shareholders approved the deal in January. The deal is expected to close in Q3 of this year. Together, the pair are aiming to tackle a $13.7 billion total addressable market, seeking to capitalize on funding for fiber builds in the U.S. and abroad.