Fiber to the farmhouse – Strategies and methods for deploying rural fiber networks

The pandemic has laid bare what rural residents have known for a long time: Rural broadband in many places is lacking. However, help is on the way. Federal and state funding programs are providing much needed assistance for rural fiber builds, and there’s never been a better time for a rural fiber build than now. This webinar will discuss design and deployment for rural networks, reviewing strategies to take fiber to the farmhouse. We’ll review the tradeoffs for various parts of the network build, and discuss concepts that may challenge some pre-conceived notions of how to deploy networks.

Panelist

Mark Boxer is Technical Manager, Solutions and Applications Engineering, at OFS. In this role, he assists customers deploying fiber in a wide variety of network design scenarios around the world and analyzes trends in telecommunications markets that drive new product innovation. Mark has a BME degree from Georgia Tech, and has spent his 30+ year career in the fiber industry. His experience includes varied roles in manufacturing and applications engineering for fiber-based products and markets. Other activities include inventor of six US Patents, member and past Secretary of the IEEE Power Engineering Society Fiber Optic Working Group, contributing member to the Fiber Broadband Association (FBA) (formerly FTTH Council) Technology Committee and Board of Directors member of the FBA and North Carolina Broadband Matters.