In response to growing FTTx deployments, Draka Communications (www.drakaamericas.com) says it will begin production of its bend-insensitive optical fiber, BendBright-XS, at its Claremont, NC manufacturing facility.

Draka says the decision to manufacture the FTTx fiber at its flagship optical-fiber production facility is intended to best serve the growing demand for bend-insensitive fibers in North America.

Recently, Draka announced that world sales of BendBright-XSexceeded the 250,000 km mark, anddemand for BendBright-XS in North America has been driven mainly by large-scale deployments of FTTx access networks. With access networks extending to single family homes and, morerecently, multi-dwelling units (MDUs), Draka says there has been a significantneed for "a robust, easy-to-install optical fiber that can endure the rigors of traditional copper cable installations." BendBright-XS is designed to avoid splicing and connectorization problems associ-ated with other bend-insensitive fibers.

"Since we first introduced Bend-Bright-XS in 2006, the demand for this fiber has grown by leaps and bounds", says Ryan Chappell, Draka's North American fiber business manager. Adds Steve Linden, Draka director of operations for North America, "The volumes of BendBright-XS have become so significant that it only makes sense to have local production of the product to best serve the North American market."

BendBright-XS, which has been commercially available for more than two years, uses a "trench-assisted" index profile to achieve whatDraka claims is the highest level of bend performance on the market and meets the ITU-T G.657.B standard for bend-insensitive fiber.

The fiber is designed for approximately 100x micro-bending and 100x macro-bending performance improvement over standard singlemode fiber, and is especially designed for access networks where cables and fibers are subjected to tight bends and harsh installation techniques (such as the staplingof cables).

Draka claims that BendBright-XS is the only commercially availableall-glass fiber that exceeds ITU-T G.657.B bending requirements while maintaining backward compatibility with existing singlemode fibers, meeting ITU-T G.652.D.

Draka Communications introduced the first generation bend-insensitive fiber, BendBright, in 2002. Updated in2005 to conform to low water peak standards, G.652.D,BendBright is a G.657.A fiber, designed for approximately10x bending improvement over standard singlemode fiber.The second generation bend-insensitive fiber—BendBright-XS, a G.657.B fiber designed for approximately 100x bendingimprovement over standard singlemode fiber—wasintroduced in 2006.