N.C. Cable Operator Rolling Out Fiber-To-The-Home Network

Country Cablevision, a small cable operator in North Carolina that received funding under the U.S. government's broadband stimulus program, has begun deploying a fiber-optic broadband network build in the rural mountain counties of Mitchell and Yancey, N.C.

Country Cablevision, which is among the first cable TV operators in the country to embrace FTTH, expects to begin turning up fiber service in early 2013.

The operator was awarded $25.3 million from the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Rural Utilities Service (RUS) to provide high-speed Internet services to more than 33,000 people, 1,900 local businesses and 120 community organizations.

As part of the project, Country Cablevision plans to place more than 100 of Clearfield's FieldSmart Fiber Scalability Center 288 passive optical network (PON) cabinets throughout its service area.

"With this project, we reviewed several architectures and had many options for housing our optical splitters and fiber terminations," Country Cablevision president Randall Miller said in a statement. "We selected Clearfield's FieldSmart Fiber Scalability Center as it provides a centralized point from which we can serve hundreds of customers. The Clearfield cabinet offers the best fiber protection, access and management in the industry which will allow us to maintain a state of the art network for many years to come."

Clearfield, based in Plymouth, Minn., manufactures and distributes fiber-optic management products for telcos, cable companies and mobile broadband providers.