- Clearfield wants to help regional fiber ISPs keep up with data center demands
- The vendor’s new NOVA platform can squeeze in more fibers per rack unit to accommodate data centers, enterprise campuses, edge apps and more
- Clearfield is also mindful of operator labor costs and shortages
The pressure is on for fiber operators to meet data center demands. Clearfield thinks its new NOVA platform can help operators get the density they need for all that AI activity.
NOVA was designed for a range of environments, from hyperscale and colocation data centers to enterprise campuses and broadband central offices (COs). It also comes with a new cassette (a way to organize fiber cables) that has a capacity of 96 fibers per rack unit.
“The scale of need in this environment has absolutely driven needs for connectivity, for power, for cooling and these are all things that are challenges for our customers,” Clearfield Chief Commercial Officer Anis Khemakhem told Fierce, noting higher-density fiber cable can improve airflow to cool down data center equipment.
Density is key given operators will need to build about 92 new fiber route miles in the next five years to keep up with data center growth, per RVA. And as cities become increasingly packed, rural areas are now hotspots for data center developers.
That means the workload is shifting toward Tier 2 and Tier 3 operators, who are Clearfield’s “core customer base,” Khemakhem said.
Fabio Baldo, director of Clearfield’s Europe division, said rural communities will be home to not only more data centers but also edge applications, such as agri-tech and IoT devices. “A lot of the computation power will be localized” to help data centers handle network traffic, and fiber providers must scale accordingly.
“Density, even in the edge, is going to be a key factor of the deployment of all these data centers,” he said.
Apart from the ability to connect more servers with fiber, Baldo said Clearfield provides “a variety of customizations” in terms of cabinets, racks and jumpers. “Because every data center has a specific design.”
The NOVA platform includes patch panels that are available in 1-, 2- and 4-rack unit (RU) sizes. According to Clearfield, a fully loaded 4 RU panel can support up to 384 Lucent Connector (LC) fibers “while still providing clean, direct front-of-rack access for moves, adds and changes.”
Labor issues
Clearfield’s NOVA launch also aims to tackle the broadband industry’s labor problems, said Khemakhem.
“Our customers want to have more of those solutions that are going to make that deployment faster, make that change faster and reduce their labor costs across the board,” he said.
Indeed, a new report from the Fiber Broadband Association (FBA) and Cartesian found labor is the primary cost driver for fiber rollouts, accounting for 72% of underground deployment costs and 64% of aerial. Moreover, the median cost to deploy underground fiber increased year-over-year to $18 per foot, while median aerial deployments reached $8 per foot.
Khemakhem said Clearfield is trying to help train fiber technicians and “make this an attractive market to come in [to].” To that end, the vendor last year introduced its BILT app, which provides 3-D interactive instructions for Clearfield products via a mobile device.
“We need to adapt to the new installer base, adapt to a new generation and ensure that we give them the right tools to make sure that they are successful and that we speed up their learning,” Khemakhem concluded.