Garden Valley Telephone chooses Clearfield’s FieldSmart for FTTH

NOVEMBER 4, 2009 -- Clearfield, Inc. says some of its FieldSmart fiber management products and services have been selected by Garden Valley Telephone Co. (GVTEL) for a fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) deployment in northwestern Minnesota. Based in Erskine, MN, GVTEL is one of the largest telephone cooperatives in the state, serving 24 exchanges.

The new FTTH deployment will encompass almost 500 route miles in and around Erskine, McIntosh, Winger, Gatzke, and St. Hilaire, MN. The FTTH project will bring the newest broadband services to a sparsely populated, large geographical area, according to Facilities Manager Randy Versdahl.

“The vast terrain and rural locale pose a special challenge because we’ll be running hundreds of miles of fiber,” says Versdahl. “But it’s necessary because our customers deserve access to the same kind of telecommunications services available in large urban areas, like IPTV and higher Internet speeds.”

The topography of the GVTEL market area makes cost-effective FTTH broadband deployment a challenge, according to Clearfield. “The modularity of the FieldSmart platform allows customers like GVTEL to reduce costs by configuring fiber management to the unique needs of their rural environment,” explains Cheri Beranek, president and CEO of Clearfield.

There were a variety of reasons for GVTEL's decision to use Clearfield integrated products for this deployment. "One of the main concerns with any large-scale project is cost. Clearfield's products are simply less expensive to deploy and operate than the competition," said Versdahl. "Additionally, it was important to have a flexible and reliable long-term solution that would protect future FTTP deployments. Clearfield’s outside plant cabinets allow us to make efficient use of our existing fiber-optic cable network as well as plan for future growth.”

“Plus, we just liked the way Clearfield’s products looked," he added.

GVTEL’s new FTTH home deployment is currently under way. Even as colder temperatures begin to settle on the North Star State, Versdahl said the installation is going well. “Our only real concern now is making sure this stage of the project gets done before the ground freezes,” he concluded.

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