Openreach to deploy permanent Full Fibre
monitoring technology to help deliver ultrafast and ultra-reliable
broadband to millions of UK homes and businesses.
LONDON, UK, Jan. 7, 2021 /CNW Telbec/ - EXFO Inc. (NASDAQ:
EXFO) (TSX: EXF), the communications industry's test, monitoring
and analytics experts, and Openreach, the United Kingdom's largest digital
infrastructure firm, today announced their collaboration on a major
initiative to accelerate Full Fibre deployment, and enhance the
quality of build and experience for customers across the UK.
The project is essential for delivering next-generation
Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) networks, which provide the digital
infrastructure required to work, learn and socialize. As part of
its industry-leading Fibre First programme, Openreach has
committed to delivering 20 million homes passed with FTTP by
the mid-to late 2020s, assuming it has the right investment
conditions. Openreach has also committed to building out this new
digital infrastructure to 4.5 million premises by the end of
March 2021.
Following a competitive tender process, Openreach has awarded
EXFO a contract to supply optical test heads and test access
switching for this initiative. With its cloud-based Nova Fiber
solution, EXFO will equip Openreach to assure its build, thereby
accelerating the programme and avoiding costly return visits to fix
connection problems—additional "truck rolls" more than double
operators testing costs.1 Following installation,
Openreach will be able to remotely monitor its fibre infrastructure
supporting the in-life operations of its Full Fibre service.
This announcement comes as Openreach hit a record build rate for
its Full Fibre broadband programme. Openreach engineers are now
delivering faster, more reliable connectivity to another 40,000
homes and businesses every week, or the equivalent of a home every
15 seconds.
Peter Bell, Director, Network
Technology, Openreach: "We know that now more than ever that
being connected matters. We're convinced that our new Full Fibre
network can play a crucial role in keeping the nation
connected. This year, our build has been gathering pace and
momentum, and we're determined to match that rapid speed of
deployment with the highest standards of build quality build and
customer service.
EXFO will help us get there. As a long-term Openreach partner,
EXFO was selected thanks to its proven ability to provide fast,
automated qualification of fibre builds, and for its unique iOLM
OTDR technology. We're committed to working with the best-in-class
to maintain our position as the UK's leading Full Fibre builder and
we're excited to lead the way as we continue to deliver
high-quality network connections to homes and businesses across the
UK."
Wim te Niet, Vice President, Sales – EMEA, EXFO:
"Openreach is an early mover in adopting permanent fibre monitoring
technology, which will eventually cover all households in the UK.
Currently, the FTTH/B penetration rate in the UK stands at
18%2, and Openreach has an ambitious plan to build out
Full Fibre to millions of households and businesses. We see a
similar wave in other key European markets like Germany. I believe network operators across
Europe will soon follow
Openreach's lead to ensure first-time-right installations, reduce
turn-up failures, and substantially reduce truck rolls for service
calls. As for markets with high FTTH/B penetration rates, telecom
operators are finding they need sophisticated automated monitoring
tools to ensure superior customer experience. EXFO's innovative
Nova Fiber solution gives them these abilities."
About EXFO
EXFO (NASDAQ: EXFO) (TSX: EXF)
develops smarter test, monitoring and analytics solutions for fixed
and mobile network operators, webscale companies and equipment
manufacturers in the global communications industry. Our customers
count on us to deliver superior network performance, service
reliability and subscriber insights. They count on our unique blend
of equipment, software and services to accelerate digital
transformations related to fibre, 4G/LTE and 5G deployments. They
count on our expertise with automation, real-time troubleshooting
and big data analytics, which are critical to their business
performance. We've spent over 35 years earning this trust, and
today 1,900 EXFO employees in over 25 countries work side by side
with our customers in the lab, field, data center and beyond.
About Openreach
Openreach Limited is the UK's digital
network business. We're 35,000 people, working in every
community to connect homes, schools, shops, banks, hospitals,
libraries, mobile phone masts, broadcasters, governments and
businesses – large and small – to the world. Our mission is to
build the best possible network, with the highest quality service,
making sure that everyone in the UK can be connected. We
work on behalf of more than 660 communications
providers like SKY, TalkTalk, Vodafone, BT and Zen, and our
broadband network is the biggest in the UK, passing more than
31.8m UK premises. Over the last
decade we've invested more than £14 billion into our network
and, at more than 185 million kilometres, it's now long
enough to wrap around the world 4,617 times. Today we're
building an even faster, more reliable and future-proof broadband
network which will be the UK's digital platform for decades to
come. We're making progress
towards our FTTP target to reach 20m
premises by mid-to late 2020s. We've also hired
more than 3,000 trainee engineers
this past financial year to help us build that
network and deliver better service across the country. Openreach is
a highly regulated, wholly owned, and independently governed unit
of the BT Group. More than 90 per cent of our revenues come from
services that are regulated by Ofcom and any company can
access our products under equivalent prices, terms and
conditions. For the year ended 31 March
2020, we reported revenue of £5bn.
For more information, visit www.openreach.co.uk/.
Email: press@openreach.co.uk
Forward-Looking Statements - EXFO
This news release
contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the U.S.
Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, and we intend
that such forward-looking statements be subject to the safe harbors
created thereby. Forward-looking statements are statements other
than historical information or statements of current condition.
Words such as may, expect, believe, plan, anticipate, intend,
could, estimate, continue, or similar expressions or the negative
of such expressions are intended to identify forward-looking
statements. In addition, any statements that refer to expectations,
projections or other characterizations of future events and
circumstances are considered forward-looking statements. They are
not guarantees of future performance and involve risks and
uncertainties. Actual results may differ materially from those in
forward-looking statements due to various factors including, but
not limited to, macroeconomic uncertainty, including trade wars and
recessions; our ability to successfully integrate businesses that
we acquire; capital spending and network deployment levels in the
communications industry (including our ability to quickly adapt
cost structures to anticipated levels of business and our ability
to manage inventory levels with market demand); future economic,
competitive, financial and market conditions; consolidation in the
global communications test, monitoring and analytics solutions
markets and increased competition among vendors; capacity to adapt
our future product offering to future technological changes;
limited visibility with regard to the timing and nature of customer
orders; delay in revenue recognition due to longer sales cycles for
complex systems involving customers' acceptance; fluctuating
exchange rates; concentration of sales; timely release and market
acceptance of our new products and other upcoming products; our
ability to successfully expand international operations and to
conduct business internationally; and the retention of key
technical and management personnel. Assumptions relating to the
foregoing involve judgments and risks, all of which are difficult
or impossible to predict and many of which are beyond our control.
Other risk factors that may affect our future performance and
operations are detailed in our Annual Report, on Form 20-F, and our
other filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and
the Canadian securities commissions. We believe that the
expectations reflected in the forward-looking statements are
reasonable based on information currently available to us, but we
cannot assure you that the expectations will prove to have been
correct. Accordingly, you should not place undue reliance on these
forward-looking statements. These statements speak only as of the
date of this document. Unless required by law or applicable
regulations, we undertake no obligation to revise or update any of
them to reflect events or circumstances that occur after the date
of this document.
1
|
Omnia operator
survey: test and measurement efficiency (2020)
|
2
|
Data taken from
recent Ofcom Connected Nations report 2020
|
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content:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/exfo-partners-with-openreach-for-ground-breaking-full-fibre-initiative-301202238.html
SOURCE EXFO Inc.