HUBER+SUHNER's Home Fibering System speeds deployment in Marburg’s city-wide FTTH project

Optical connectivity specialist Huber+Suhner is helping the German city of Marburg to roll out its high speed broadband services with a unique Home Fibering System (HOFIS) that enables the town’s residents to self-install their fiber optic home networks. Set to revolutionise the world of FTTH by dramatically speeding the time to deployment, the simple but innovative HOFIS system will be on show for the first time anywhere in the world at HUBER+SUHNER’s booth at the FTTH Council’s European conference in Stockholm later this month and Marburg’s ground-breaking deployment will be featured as a “living case study” on the stand (G2).

The public utilities (Stadtwerke Marburg) in the picturesque German university town of Marburg are currently installing fiber optic cabling throughout the city and Huber+Suhner has been chosen to provide a self-install, plug-and-play solution that enables rapid deployment within homes and apartments.
Provided free-of-charge to residents by the utility company, HOFIS is a self-installation system for houses and apartments and can be deployed as soon as buildings are connected to the town’s fiber optic FTTH system. Homeowners and tenants are sent their free HOFIS pack and can complete their home installation when they wish, deciding themselves where they want the junction box mounted and where they want the fiber optic cable laid from the initial home entry point.

Stefan Koch, project manager at Stadtwerke Marburg, said: "Self-installation really works. Everyone benefits from our collaboration with HUBER+SUHNER. We as the local authority do not have to arrange appointments, only to find ourselves in front of locked doors. We don’t have to move furniture or hold long and difficult conversations about the siting of the boxes.”

HOFIS provides exceptionally easy installation of fiber into the home. The system combines the Huber+Suhner optical socket (OTS2) with prefabricated low-bend-installation cables (class G.657 A2). The innovative dust-proof packaging made of recyclable PET plastic not only protects the system during transportation, but also provides a fast and effective method for unrolling the cable and attaching the socket on-site. This "plug and play” system eliminates the need for time-consuming splicing in the home. HOFIS is available with a variety of cable lengths and fiber counts and comes with the FITH-typical connectors BLINK, LC or SC .

Christian Sutter, HUBER+SUHNER’s FMS Product Manager, said: “This is an exciting proposition for any operator wishing to speed up its roll-out of FTTH. It removes the need for expensive and time-consuming door-to-door installation by the operator by empowering the individual resident with a very simple installation solution. It gives residents the flexibilty to choose when and where they locate the Fibre in the Home network (FITH) he or she wants to achieve.”