March 24, 2005 Bonn, Germany -- OFS, a designer and manufacturer fiber-optic products, announced today that it has been selected by NetCologne, one of Germany's largest regional telecommunications carriers, to upgrade the carrier's network in the Rhein-Erft region. For the upgrade, the company will supply 80 km of its AllWave Zero Water Peak (ZWP) optical fiber in its 144 fiber-count laminated aluminum polyethylene sheath cable design.
According to the company, by enabling transmission in the 1400-nm range, the installation of its optical fiber will increase capacity for voice and data by up to 50% in areas served by the upgrade.
"The installation of AllWave ZWP gives NetCologne a competitive advantage over communication providers in the area by offering its customers increased bandwidth," comments Reinhard Schmidt, sales director of OFS Europe. "With our sales office in Bonn, in the immediate proximity to Cologne, we were able to meet NetCologne's requirements in a real-time fashion."
The carrier has also contracted the company's mini- and micro- cables, to enable additional bandwidth capacities within fully-loaded, narrow ducts. According to a press release, cables with an outer diameter of 3.5 to 6 mm and a maximum fiber count of 72 fibers will be blown into the carrier's micro-ducts, enabling service according to local requirements. According to the release, the carrier expects to realize considerable cost savings with this method of infrastructure deployment, as it eliminates the time and expense of traditional civil engineering work.
New pathways to access the carrier's customer base in Cologne include several running through the sewer network of the city of Kerpen, where tubes and fiber-optic cable have been laid without disrupting the environment, according to the release.
"By using the sewer infrastructure, we are able to bypass areas that cannot be built out," explains Norbert Ruttgers, NetCologne's manager of network planning and implementation.
Owned by Furukawa Electric, OFS is the former Optical Fiber Solutions division of Lucent Technologies.