Fiber Connectivity | Clearfield Unveils Two New Products

Clearfield, Inc., the enabler in community broadband fiber connectivity, has announced the CraftSmart® FiberFirst 6-inch Pedestal, a compact, secure, above-ground access point ideal for operators looking to expand their fiber footprint into less densely populated areas and communities.

As NTIA BEAD funding starts to flow, having economical Build America, Buy America (BABA)-qualified products that can streamline the delivery of fiber broadband services in rural communities will be a clear competitive advantage and help operators expand fiber networks further.

Clearfield’s Labor Lite approach to product design ensures that the CraftSmart FiberFirst 6-inch Pedestal can be deployed by any level of field technician in the outside plant environment.

“Over the next five years, fiber broadband will be deployed to more homes than ever before, meaning operators will be expanding their networks to the harder to reach places and homes – homes where the economics of delivering fiber service did not work in the past,” said Clearfield’s Chief Marketing Officer, Kevin Morgan. “The compact form factor, the wide range of deployment scenarios supported, and the optimized design to support craft-friendly fiber deployments allows the CraftSmart FiberFirst Pedestal to expand the operator’s toolkit as it looks to build out its fiber footprint.”

Clearfield’s CraftSmart product line provides physical fiber protection for delivering a turn-key passive solution from the central office/headend to the customer premises. The CraftSmart FiberFirst 6-inch Pedestal delivers a small, cost-effective, non-metallic enclosure – tested to meet industry standards for strength, reliability, and environmental concerns. Designed and tested to withstand harsh environmental conditions, as well as UV, chemical and impact resistance, the FiberFirst 6-inch Pedestal includes a built-in multi-use metal frame optimized for mounting the small footprint SeeChange® Terminal, in addition to accommodating other small profile Clearfield products, such as the Clearview® xPAK cassette, inside of the pedestal.

As a part of the CraftSmart family of pedestal offerings, the 6-inch Pedestal provides another option to ensure that Clearfield’s customers can leverage products purpose built to streamline the deployment of fiber broadband into any environment and situation, without adding operational or capital expense for products that are not sized for the opportunity. Clearfield’s craft friendly, Labor Lite product designs are field-engineered to deliver what providers need to solve pain points – and in this case, delivering to the needs of lower density suburban and rural deployments.

Clearfield Sizes Active Cabinet to Expand Fiber First Mover Deployments

Clearfield, Inc., has also announced the FieldSmart® FiberFlex 1700 active cabinet, an all-in-one design capable of integrating fiber, power, and active equipment that is tailored to fit into any outdoor plant scenario.

Designed to be configured for numerous applications including remote OLTs with PON distribution, wireless base stations with fiber backhaul aggregation, edge compute server support, or active network equipment with backup power needs, the FiberFlex 1700 utilizes a flexible, vertical layout and modular design that allows for seamlessly scaled networks as future growth dictates.

Clearfield’s FiberFlex 1700 active cabinet provides from 12 to 432 internal fiber distribution ports for subscriber PON deployments, along with complementary splitter capacity, ideal for supporting greenfield fiber builds, rural network expansion, and other deployments supporting new markets with room to grow.

The FiberFlex 1700 active cabinet accepts local AC power via the integrated AC Load Center with generator plug for backup power. The cabinet’s small, 4-foot-high size makes it ideal to provide a right-sized cabinet to meet a reduced height requirement that overcomes permitting and rights-of-way challenges.

“Our fiber first, labor lite design makes the FiberFlex 1700 active cabinet easy to integrate into any fiber deployment, whether it’s an MSO that is expanding its footprint or the community broadband operator leveraging BEAD funding to reach the underserved and unserved,” said Johnny Hill, Chief Operating Officer at Clearfield. “The applications that require fiber are growing exponentially, inside the smart home, as well as 5G backhaul and fronthaul, middle mile applications, and the emerging Edge compute market. Delivering an easy-to-deploy, flexible active cabinet to support an operator’s first deployment in any market provides a clear, competitive advantage as this market opportunity unfolds.”