Farmers Telephone Cooperative, Clearfield bring fiber to 10,000 South Carolina homes

A Fiber to the Home (FTTH) initiative by Farmers Telephone Cooperative (FTC), with fiber management assistance from Clearfield Inc. (NASDAQ:CLFD), will provide a 400-mile corridor of new fiber over the next two years, enabling approximately 10,000 South Carolina homes to realize the benefits of fiber-based communications, including phone service, digital TV, high-speed Internet, security, and wireless service.

FTC will use Clearfield’s FieldSmart products in the 24-month Passive Optical Network (PON) deployment. Included within the deployment plan are the FieldSmart Fiber Scalability Center (FSC) for the outside plant and the FieldSmart Fiber Crossover Distribution System (FxDS) in various port counts for the inside plant, as well as associated optical component technologies. To optimize performance and reduce energy consumption, FTC will deploy Clearfield’s FiberDeep OSP fiber pigtails throughout the build.

FTC has purchased fiber management panels from Clearfield for years, says FTC Plant Design Supervisor Mark Brown. “The cassette also eliminated a failure point in protecting the vulnerable back side of the panel to fiber breaks due to improper assembly or installation,” Brown says.