After more than a year of juggling evolving work, school, and social interaction dynamics brought on by the pandemic, one thing is for sure – fast, reliable broadband is more important than ever before. Even so, long before the pandemic, the push to close the digital divide has been growing for some time, with efforts to get better internet connectivity to underserved and rural communities.

Extending Fiber with New Installations

But for some service providers, enterprises, or government entities that have exhausted their available fiber infrastructure and now need to deliver more broadband connectivity, the obvious solution may be to implement new fiber. However, this can be an intensive and costly process.

Some industry estimates put the cost of an underground fiber installation somewhere between $15,000 – $18,000 per mile, with those estimates increasing to $25,000 per mile following the COVID-19 pandemic and increased demand and materials costs. Those costs cover digging trenches, installing conduit and cable before filling in the trench, and repaving (if necessary). Not only is this a costly process, but trenching fiber can mean digging up roads, which involves the cost and time to obtain permits, and then building around underground obstacles like tree roots, sprinkler systems, and utility pipes and wiring.

Depending on location, there can be additional challenges. For example, at a military base, trenching fiber could mean shutting down and digging up runways, which is a major disturbance to base operations. In a city, trenching fiber can mess with road conditions, impacting traffic flow and driver and pedestrian safety conditions. Overall, trenching fiber can be a very costly, time-consuming hassle.

And while it’s less expensive to implement fiber cabling above ground, it’s not the preferred method due to poor aesthetics and the potential for cabling to be exposed and damaged due to harsh environmental elements or human error.

We have a solution that can increase capacity 16x per pair of fiber runs.

CWDM Offers an Alternative

In locations where there is already a fiber installation, there is a way to maximize that installation for increased broadband throughput while avoiding the costs and issues associated with trenching and installing new fiber.

Coarse wavelength division multiplexing (CWDM) is a cost-effective method to maximize existing fiber by transporting multiple network data flows simultaneously over a pair of fiber using different wavelengths. Since CWDM is a passive technology, it allows for multiple speeds and any protocol to be transported over the link, as long as it is at a specific wavelength.

Transition Networks Solutions

Transition Networks offers CWDM Mux/Demux devices and CWDM small form-factor pluggables (SFP) to extend fiber connections. Transition Networks CWDM solution can accommodate network modifications and growth, providing 100Mb to 10G speeds.

Transition Networks CWDM Mux and Add/Drop Mux systems (CWDM-A2A8xxLCR-B Series) provide a simple and affordable way to maximize existing fiber. By implementing CWDM Mux/Demux or CWDM Mux and Add/Drop Mux devices, service providers, enterprises, and government entities can multiply the bandwidth on a single fiber pair providing more throughput without the extraordinary price tag of a new fiber cable run. With Transition Networks CWDM systems, a single fiber pair can carry up to 16 different bandwidth channels, saving thousands of dollars per mile while still achieving the bandwidth and distance benefits of a direct fiber connection.

Transition Networks CWDM SFPs are Multi-Sourcing Agreement (MSA) compliant, ensuring interoperability with all other MSA-compliant networking devices.

Contact our federal team today to customize a plan and learn more about the benefits CWDM will provide for your network.