BEACHWOOD, Ohio -- DRS LLC., a service provider and information technology consulting firm with client networks in 37 states and 6 countries, recently experienced a pressing need to expand its network capabilities when its fiber plant around Columbus, Ohio was exhausted for future growth. With more than 800 miles of fiber optic cable delivering service to clients across Ohio and Pennsylvania, the company sought a cost-effective means of accommodating its steady growth without accruing significant new infrastructure expense. By partnering with Champion ONE, a global provider of carrier-grade fiber optic solutions, the company found an innovative, cost-effective means of doubling its fiber plant in the Columbus area without trenching additional fiber optic cable, creating the foundation for DRS's future expansion in the region.

DRS, headquartered in Youngstown, Ohio, specializes in cloud services, managed services, data center operations and network infrastructure deployments. DRS's building and metro cabling services division has been building out its infrastructure for more than 10 years, providing metro area clients with broadband services, IT expansion services and critical support capabilities. To support commercial growth in the Ohio market, however, DRS concluded that it would need to increase its existing network capacity, to enable the completion of fiber rings in the Columbus metro region and future expansion.

DRS turned to Champion ONE, an Ohio-based provider of MSA compliant, carrier-grade transceivers and optical solutions known for its superior service, pricing and support. Working closely with Champion ONE engineers, DRS opted to deploy single fiber single wavelength (SFSW) fiber optic pluggable transceivers to enable full duplex data transmission on a single strand of fiber while using the same wavelength on both ends of the connection. The adoption of SFSW technology effectively doubled DRS's fiber plant while eliminating the need to incur the high costs of laying new fiber, as each strand of fiber can now be leveraged to support a full service whereas it previously required two strands.

Champion Optical Network Engineering LLC