This collaboration with Openreach strengthens a 14-year-old technology and supply relationship between the two companies, and further reinforces STL's commitment to the UK market.
The announcement comes as Openreach continues to ramp up the build rate for its Full Fibre broadband program – which aims to reach 20 million homes and businesses by the mid-to-late 2020s. Openreach says its engineers are now delivering faster, more reliable connectivity to another 42,000 homes and businesses every week, or the equivalent of a home every 15 seconds. 4.5 million premises can now order a gigabit capable Full Fibre broadband service from a range of competing service providers using Openreach's new network.
For the network build, Openreach plans to take advantage of STL's Opticonn solution – a specialized set of fiber, cable and interconnect offerings designed to drive significant performance improvements, including up to 30 percent faster installation, according to the company.
Openreach will also have access to STL's Celesta – a high-density optical fiber cable with a capacity of up to 6,912 optical fibers. According to STL, Celesta's compact design is 26 percent slimmer compared to traditional loose tube cables, allowing 2000 meters of cable to be installed in under an hour. The high density super-slim cable will also help minimize the use of plastic across Openreach's new network.
