SUNSET DIGITAL DEPLOYS OFS EZ-BEND™ OPTICAL DROP CABLE IN THEIR FTTH NETWORK

Demonstrated Bending Performance up to 500 times better than conventional SMF to Enable Faster and Lower Cost Installations for Sunset Digital

Norcross, Georgia, February 24, 2009  —  OFS today announced that Sunset Digital is using the EZ-Bend™ drop cable for their fiber-to-the-home deployments.  OFS’ EZ-Bend technology will enable Sunset Digital to create a reliable, secure, high-speed network for their customers facilitating such high-bandwidth applications as HD IPTV, Telemedicine, and HD video downloads.

Sunset Digital’s deployment uses a Mini LT flat drop cable with OFS’ AllWave^® FLEX fiber to connect rural single-family homes and businesses in Southwest Virginia.  After the flat drop cable is spliced to EZ-Bend cable at a network interface device (NID) on the side of the home, the EZ-Bend cable is routed indoors to the customer premises equipment (CPE).   The robust 4.8 millimeter EZ-Bend cable allows Sunset Digital technicians to install the cable indoors with no existing pathways while the FITEL^® Splice-On Connector allows direct terminations to the CPE, avoiding the cost and space of additional fiber management hardware in the home.  The solid glass structure of EZ-Bend leaves Sunset Digital the option of using mechanical splices or mechanical connectors if desired and enables easy fusion splicing.

“Sunset Digital has adopted the practice of installing our subscriber equipment indoors because of the cost savings with the CPE,” says Paul Elswick, President and CEO of Sunset Digital.  “However, this requires us to take fiber inside a customer’s home and through all sorts of installation conditions.  The EZ-Bend product from OFS has the bend radius and the robustness to support the application, while leaving a higher quality of fit and finish that we require.  Additionally, it terminates and splices like conventional fiber products so our field technicians need no additional training.”

“Sunset Digital is an innovative company, bringing wideband fiber-to-the-premises connectivity for the first time to hospitals, businesses, and rural single-family homes.  Using the EZ-Bend cable technology made a lot of sense as it conforms to the homes’ contours and can be stapled around sharp corners utilizing existing copper cable installation tools,” said William Kloss, Executive VP of Marketing & Sales, North America & CALA.  “This is enabled by EZ-Bend Technologies’ bending loss improvement of up to 500-times that of conventional single-mode fibers (SMF) type cables under the tight bends routinely encountered in residence installations.”

About EZ-Bend Technology

OFS’ patent pending EZ-Bend Technology is the first which targets MDU applications and provides <0.1 dB/turn bending loss performance at 1550 nm using a solid glass fiber construction, while being fully splice and performance compatible with typical installed fibers. The solid glass construction of EZ-Bend technology fiber enables the use of conventional fusion splicing equipment, conventional connector mounting, conventional connector cleaning processes, and avoids the compatibility pitfalls of hole assisted and nano-structured fibers. A robust patent pending optical cable design helps protect the optical fiber from bing kinked or crushed. 

About OFS

OFS is a world-leading designer, manufacturer and provider of optical fiber, optical fiber cable, FTTX, optical connectivity and specialty photonics products.  Our manufacturing and research divisions work together to provide innovative products and solutions that traverse many different applications as they link people and machines worldwide. Between continents, between cities, around neighborhoods, and into homes and businesses of digital consumers we provide the right optical fiber, optical cable and components for efficient, cost-effective transmission.
 
OFS’ corporate lineage dates back to 1876 and includes technology powerhouses such as AT&T (NYSE: T) and Lucent Technologies (now Alcatel-Lucent, NYSE: ALU). Today, OFS is owned by Furukawa Electric, a multi-billion dollar global leader in optical communications.
Headquartered in Norcross (near Atlanta) Georgia, U.S., OFS is a global provider with facilities in Avon, Connecticut; Carrollton, Georgia; Somerset, New Jersey; and Sturbridge, Massachusetts, as well as in Denmark, Germany and Russia.

For more information, please visit www.ofsoptics.com.

About Sunset Digital Communications

Sunset Digital is a regional ISP in Southwest Virginia that is bringing fiber-optic broadband connectivity to the businesses and homes of Southwest Virginia.  A trailblazer in the communications industry, Sunset designed, built and maintains one of the 3 first networks of its kind in the United States.  The Sunset Digital Network is a Gig-Ethernet, active fiber-optic network with fast, reliable and affordable broadband access to multiple physical infrastructures. Sunset provides multiple services to users in the area including Internet, private VLAN / point-to-point services and wholesale Internet options. These connectivity options are crucial to Sunset’s customers and provide them a significant cost-savings in equipment and time.

More information may be found at http://www.sunsetcom.net.

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Sherry Salyer      
OFS Public Relations      
shsalyer@ofsoptics.com    
Direct:  770-798-4210 
Mobile: 678-296-7034