Clearfield® FastPass™ Accelerates Fiber Broadband Operators Ability to Move from Homes Passed to Homes Connected

With nearly a 40% speed of deployment advantage as operators rapidly expand fiber broadband, Clearfield customers demonstrate the ability to nearly double the rate of homes connected

Clearfield, Inc. (NASDAQ:CLFD), the specialist in fiber management for communication service providers, today shared information learned during a recent customer deployment study to measure the time savings achieved using FastPass™ as part of its efforts to move from fiber homes passed to fiber homes connected. Homes passed and homes connected are the first two steps critical to help close the digital equity gap and achieve the ultimate goal of homes served.

“In this once-in-a-generation opportunity to connect more customers with fiber than ever before, the FastPass method is proving to deliver unmatched time-to-market advantages for our customers to connect homes faster,” said Kevin Morgan, chief marketing officer at Clearfield. “Homes passed is just the first step. Our innovative, labor lite product development at Clearfield is just as focused on the metric of homes connected to enable our customers to optimize their workflow, so that everyone, everywhere has access to the broadband services needed to thrive and grow.”

A total of 159 residential installations were included as part of the study. The results were compared to a previous baseline survey. Highlights of the findings include:

• Outside installation time was reduced to an average of 1 hour and 5 minutes, a savings of 39 minutes or 38%
• Inside installation time was reduced to 35 minutes, a savings of 19 minutes or 35%
• Cumulative time savings enabled this operator to add one and sometimes two additional installation appointments per day for each technician

Clearfield products used in this study included Clearfield’s Small Count Delivery (SCD) Test Access Point (TAP) Wall Box with FLEXdrop® Fiber Deploy Reel and Pushable Connectors. Clearfield delivered pre-connectorized cable products for both the drop cable and the house cable. The house cable was supplied on Clearfield’s FieldShield® FLEXdrop Fiber Deploy Reel, a 4-1/2” reel that can contain up to 100-feet of FLEXdrop optical cable. The Deploy Reel minimizes pre-engineering because there is no need to specify the exact length of cable needed and the reel allows FLEXdrop to be pulled directly to the access point. Once the pushable connector has reached its destination, the connector assembly is completed with the supplied connector housings and the connector is mated to the adapter.

“The ability to connect more homes, with fewer field resources, is critical to our operations for two key reasons – it allows us to get more customers onto the fiber network and to do so more efficiently with our available team,” said Jeremy Billings, Central Construction Planning and Engineering Manager for Midco Communications. “Fiber broadband delivers too many advantages and any technology or partner that allows us to reach our goals faster, at a lower cost, as Clearfield has done, provides a level of value that cannot be underestimated.”

More information on Clearfield’s FastPass™ can be found in this whitepaper and video, available at https://www.seeclearfield.com/fastpass.html

About Clearfield, Inc.

Clearfield, Inc. (NASDAQ: CLFD) designs, manufactures, and distributes fiber optic management, protection, and delivery products for communications networks. Our “fiber to anywhere” platform serves the unique requirements of leading incumbent local exchange carriers (traditional carriers), competitive local exchange carriers (alternative carriers), and MSO/cable TV companies, while also catering to the broadband needs of the utility/municipality, enterprise, data center and military markets. Headquartered in Minneapolis, MN, Clearfield deploys more than a million fiber ports each year. For more information, visit www.SeeClearfield.com.

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