South Slope, Clearfield Bring FTTH to Iowa

MINNEAPOLIS -- South Slope CooperativeCommunications Company, Iowa's largest independent cooperativetelephone company, is partnering with Clearfield, Inc. (Nasdaq:CLFD) ona major Fiber-to-the-Home (FTTH) deployment that will ultimately cover310 square miles between Iowa City and Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

The project began recently in the North Liberty exchange, which is thefirst of a multi-phase FTTH "overbuild" of South Slope's entireincumbent local exchange carrier (ILEC) service area. According toSouth Slope Transmissions Systems Engineer Phil Jones, the company hasbeen offering FTTH for six years and has approximately 2,500subscribers. In addition to North Liberty, South Slope servesapproximately 15 Iowa communities.

Because of the tens of thousands of individual fibers being deployed aspart of the active Ethernet solution, Clearfield's fiber managementexpertise was required. Clearfield's FieldSmart(R) Fiber CrossoverDistribution System (FxDS), a custom-configured system of fibermanagement components that reduces the cost of fiber deployment, whilemaximizing ease of use and system density, will help South Slope managethe myriad fibers. Simply stated, with so many fibers coming in, theyneeded a fiber management solution to route the jumpers in an efficientmanner, and also looked clean and orderly.

"We were looking for something that fit our vision and had theappearance to go along with it. The FxDS line provided us with both,"Jones said.

Clearfield Inc. (Nasdaq: CLFD)