Corning Happy to Play Supporting Role in Operator Buildouts
By Noah Ziegler
The $42.45 billion figure NTIA oversees with its BEAD Program is quite the mountain, and the task to bridge the digital divide in all 50 states, territories and D.C. is far from simple. As states and operators throughout the U.S. await their turns to put that funding to work, Corning has been ready to roll out the fiber technology needed to accomplish such a large-scale expansion.
Corning has been taking steps to help since the program’s creation in November 2021 from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. The company has invested more than $500 million in new manufacturing capacity for fiber and cable plants over the past four years. According to Bob Whitman, VP, Market Development for Carrier Networks, those investments have essentially doubled Corning’s ability to serve the market.
“Bottom line is, we’re ready with products to meet this demand when demand starts to happen,” Whitman says. “Corning will be ready with end-to-end solutions. As soon as that money starts flowing, we’ll be selling those products. [There’s] excitement and anticipation, and hopefully we’ll start to see NTIA approve some state plans and with that, money starts flowing.”
In March 2023, Corning unveiled a new optical cable manufacturing campus in Hickory, North Carolina, which added 400 high-skilled manufacturing jobs to a workforce that already surpassed 5,000 employees. The new Trivium campus has enabled Corning to scale more and bring down some of the lead times on cable, which is key considering the wrench that the pandemic threw on the nation’s supply chain.
Some of the technological innovations Corning has recently launched include the Evolv FlexNAP solution with Multifiber Pushlok technology, designed to accelerate fiber-to-the-home deployments and increase network density, scalability and flexibility. The enhanced product line also includes the Evolv Assemblies that feature tactile and audible feedback as well as new terminals that are available in a stubless format in order to reduce operators’ reliance on extensive inventory and part numbers. Corning has also reduced the terminals’ packaging material per unit figure by up to 30%.
Corning also took it upon itself to form the Rural Advisory Council, a group containing small operators from across the country as well as one outside of the U.S. that allows Corning to better understand the challenges that come with deploying fiber in remote areas. The RAC has been meeting virtually on a quarterly basis for a few years now and meets face-to-face once a year to stay on top of the various hurdles these operators run into and will encounter in the future.
“We brainstorm solutions, we come up with product concepts, we trial them out. So we’re learning from them and their challenges [and] they’re learning from each other when they have these challenges and how to solve them,” Whitman says about the Council. “It’s really working out great and we’re learning so much about how to handle the space that nobody has been deploying to yet.”
Whitman has been involved in the world of FTTH for almost his whole professional career up to this point. He sees BEAD as the true opportunity to bridge the digital divide. Until states are able to push funding to operators and the BEAD bonanza kicks into high gear, Whitman and Corning will stand firm saying “We’re ready.”
“I’ve been working on fiber-to-the-home for almost my whole career, and it is truly the opportunity to finish this out and get fiber to everybody who wants it,” Whitman says. “When I first started doing this, it was only the little guys—small carriers, utilities. It wasn’t the big guys doing it, and now we’re back to the big guys finishing programs or talking about finishing programs, and little guys are going to be what’s left. Being able to help them achieve some of these types of builds is going to be a career milestone.”