DENVER — Advanced Fibre Communications Inc. will be playing a role in Verizon Communications' well-publicized last-mile fiber plans. AFC has signed a letter of agreement with Verizon outlining a pending contract for fiber-to-the-premises equipment supply, as well as laboratory trial agreement.
AFC (Petaluma, Calif.) is modifying its popular AccessMax pedestal with an added FiberDirect passive-optical-network line card, effectively turning it into an optical line terminal.
Verizon has announced it will use passive optical network (PON) topologies, a preferred last-mile access method in several regions with new "greenfield" housing and office developments, where fiber in the last mile makes more sense than DSL technologies.
More than 100,000 AccessMax units, based on a variety of physical media, have been deployed, which AFC chief executive John Schofield said gave the FiberDirect PON line card an automatic level of credibility in the market.
Since AccessMax has an integrated voice gateway for connection to a Class 5 switch, the PON systems deployed by Verizon will be able to handle circuit-switched voice as well as packet data and voice.
No dollar amount for the Verizon contracts was announced.
