NASHVILLE, Tenn. – Nokia has today announced a Rural Broadband Relief Program for regional service providers in North America aspiring to close the digital divide. Unveiled at the Fiber Connect conference, Nokia has set aside Fiber-To-The-Home (FTTH) kits for expedited delivery to rural service providers. Each 'network-in-a-box' kit is suitable for building a network for a town of up to 1,000 homes.

Households in unserved or underserved areas have been hardest hit by global supply chain shortages of telecommunications equipment as operators planning new gigabit broadband networks have been unable to complete their builds. While both public and private funds are available in unprecedented quantities, many small operators have found themselves unable to secure the necessary materials from their established supply chains to meet their self-imposed construction schedules or regulatory-imposed milestones.

Each Nokia Broadband Relief Kit is comprised of the necessary FTTH equipment, software licenses, support, and state-of-the-art in-home WiFi gateways required to serve a typical town of 1,000 households. The kits support GPON and XGS-PON over a single port and fiber using Nokia's Multi-PON-Module (MPM) technology.

According to Dell'Oro, Nokia was the 2021 market share leader for XGS-PON equipment Seven out of 10 fiber homes in the USA are served using Nokia FTTH kit.

Read the full press release here.

Nokia