Arris Gets Some RFoG ActionArris Gets Some RFoG Action

5:00 PM -- The market for Radio Frequency Over Glass (RFoG) technology remains a niche play, but it's finally starting to gain some traction at Arris Group Inc. (Nasdaq: ARRS), one of cable's key suppliers.

Arris, which formally entered the RFoG game last March, won a deal with Trinity Communications that calls for the vendor to supply the cable op with gear to help it deploy a 200-mile fiber-to-the-premises (FTTP) network that will reach 3,000 homes and businesses in Marion and Sequatchie County, Tenn. (See Arris Enters RFoG Fray and Arris Notches RFoG Deal.)

Under the deal, Arris is supplying its CORWave II multi-wavelength forward transmitters and FTTMax RFoG Optical Network Units (ONUs) at the premises, and its TransMax RFoG Repeater to amp up the RFoG wavelengths.

RFoG, which is not yet a Society of Cable Telecommunications Engineers (SCTE) standard, lets MSOs offer their traditional set of voice, video, and data services over FTTP while preserving their legacy headends, underlying OSSs, and consumer premises equipment (CPE), including Docsis modems and set-tops. Operators don't get much of a speed gain, but RFoG does allow them to attach PON extensions.

MSOs, typically in the Tier 2 and Tier 3 category, are using RFoG to target rural areas and greenfield opportunities in which developers insist on FTTP. (See Costs Could Keep RFoG a Niche Player and RFoG Gets the Squeeze.)

Arris hasn't specifically said how much RFoG will contribute to its bottom line, but did note during its second-quarter call that its RFoG products were starting to move from the lab to the field, and were poised to contribute revenues "over the next several quarters."

— Jeff Baumgartner, Site Editor, Light Reading Cable