At the Fiber Connect 2022 (June 12-15) conference, Nokia unveiled its Rural Broadband Relief Program, an offering for regional service providers in North America seeking to close the digital divide.
As the centerpiece of the program, Nokia announced that it has set aside fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) kits for expedited delivery to rural broadband service providers. As reckoned by the company, each of these ‘network-in-a-box’ kits is suitable for building a network for a town of up to 1,000 homes.
A company statement explaining the program contends, "Households in unserved or underserved areas have been hardest hit by global supply chain shortages of telecommunications equipment as operators planning new gigabit broadband networks have been unable to complete their builds. While both public and private funds are available in unprecedented quantities, many small operators have found themselves unable to secure the necessary materials from their established supply chains to meet their self-imposed construction schedules or regulatory-imposed milestones."
To meet such challenges, as stated by the company, each Nokia Broadband Relief Kit is comprised of the necessary FTTH equipment, software licenses, support, and in-home WiFi gateways required to serve a typical town of 1,000 households. The kits support GPON and XGS-PON over a single port and fiber using Nokia’s Multi-PON-Module (MPM) technology.
Sandy Motley, president, Fixed Networks at Nokia, commented: “The pandemic magnified the importance of having broadband regardless of a household's geographical location. Families residing in rural communities, particularly those with school-aged children, suffered greatly from a lack of broadband and ability to participate in remote learning. We want to support the operators launching in hyper-localized markets but who cannot secure broadband equipment in these difficult times. In addition, we also believe that all service providers need to have one eye on the future, so all the kits can support 25G PON today or when the need arises.”
According to industry analyst Dell’Oro Group, Nokia was the 2021 market share leader for XGS-PON equipment, with seven out of 10 fiber homes in the U.S. being served using the Nokia FTTH kit.
Jeff Heynen, VP of Broadband Access and Home Networking at Dell’Oro Group, concluded, “While nearly every company in every industry has been impacted by global shortages of critical electronic components and chips, Nokia’s global supply chain has allowed them to fair a bit better than other companies in this market vertical.”