NOV/ DE C 20 12 5 ® INTERVIEW with MICHEL PARENT In his 26 years as a technology consultant within the Outside Plant Technology Research group at Bell Canada, Michel Parent has seen just about everything when it comes to optical communications technology evolution. So when Bell Canada was ready to move from fiber to the node to fiber to the home ( FTTH) in 2009, Parent was ready to help guide the carriers’ installation strategies and solve any problems encountered in the field. His wisdom and influence earned him the 2012 FTTXcellence Award. Now in its ninth year and co- sponsored by Corning Inc. and Lightwave , the FTTXcellence Award honors the achievements of an individual who has significantly advanced the use of optical communications technology in North American access networks. In this interview, Parent reviews his experiences with Bell Canada’s FTTH history, including its current brownfield FTTH deployment in Quebec City in the province of Quebec. Lightwave : What were the main challenges you faced as you began working with FTTH in 2009? Parent: It was more the scale of the deployment that was a difficulty. It was not the technology. The technology in 2009 was mature enough. Corning and Verizon had already developed single- fiber hardened connectors, multifiber hardened connectors, so a lot of connectorization [ technology was already available]. The main difficulty remains the splicing. And when you get into pre- connectorized, the main issue is slack management, the quantity of material or configuration required, drops of predetermined length, that’s an issue. Same thing with the terminal with stubs at various lengths. So it’s the material management that’s difficult. Maintenance on fiber is still a challenge, and there’s still development required, that’s for sure. And time to restore is the main challenge on fiber when compared to copper. It’s more the repair, not the preventative [ measures]. You have a pole down, a car crash, whatever. There’s TV on this, and people may get upset and want the service back ASAP – and to restore fiber is not the same ball game as on copper. When fiber is deployed into underground structures – whether you do toll or trunk or you go to large customers in main cities, everything is underground, is in structures, duct systems. In the aerial it goes into very wide right- of- ways, no trees. When we get into the distribution, the fiber is in a completely different environment and the types of damages we experience are completely different. Steady progress earns Bell Canada vet 2012 FTTXcellence Award MICHEL PARENT is a technology consultant for the Outside Plant Technology Research group at Bell Canada, specializing in fiber optics.