The president of Windstream's Kinetic business outlined the company's ambitions for 2022, saying it has already covered about 20 per cent of its fibre in its 18-state footprint and plans to tackle another 10 per cent this year.
All told, Windstream expects to have fibre in 400,000 new locations in 100 communities by 2022. It expects to run at a similar pace over the next three years, but also at a slightly slower pace. The work is part of a previously announced five-year project to deliver gigabit capacity to a total of 2 million locations. In addition to the five-year build-out, Windstream is looking to further expand its footprint through public-private partnership opportunities.
"It's a fairly decentralised offering and our aim is to address as much of our footprint as possible, "It does make sense to address our footprint broadly because it helps us execute these builds because we can spread them evenly across our footprint."
All of the fibre builds it is executing in 2021 use XGS-PON technology and he says it will continue to use XGS-PON until better options are available.
Windstream serves many rural areas and says its gigabit service layer is resonating with customers, achieving 30 to 40 percent adoption where available. According to the company's third quarter update, as of September 30, 2021, approximately 18 per cent of its footprint is available at 1 Gbps. windstream has yet to release its fourth quarter report.
But the company isn't just rolling out fibre for residential services. windstream's chief network officer said the company plans nearly 2,000 miles of fibre overload or new construction in 2022 to drive growth in its intelligent converged optical network (ICON).
Launched in mid-2021, ICON is an open, converged and disaggregated network architecture that incorporates deep analytics to provide additional value to customers. windstream has been working to implement ICON in its long-haul infrastructure and at the edge.
To date, ICON has been deployed in approximately half of Windstream's long-haul network: approximately 5-10% using Ciena's Reconfigurable Line System and 40-45% using an upgraded version of Infinera's Flex Line System. Windstream aims to deploy ICONs in another 10-15% of its long-haul network this year.
In terms of ICON at the edge, Bayer said Windstream issued a request for proposals in 2021 and is still reviewing the submissions. The award is expected to start in the first half of this year, with construction starting in the second half of 2022.
Bayer explains that ICON is key to its wholesale strategy because its assortment nature allows Windstream to move faster than its competitors and to solve supply chain issues more easily by working with multiple suppliers. For example, it can proactively stock consistent pluggable devices and keep them on hand, enabling it to deliver quickly when customers need them.
