Saudi Telecom Company (STC) and US industrial materials manufacturer Corning Incorporated announced that Corning will supply and share its FTTH optical solutions with STC, as an enabler to the STC national network for high-speed connectivity and fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) applications.
"STC enjoys a strong reputation as an innovator in the Middle East," said Clark Kinlin, executive vice president of Corning Optical Communications. "It established itself as a leader in advanced broadband technologies such as FTTH. Corning shares STC's commitment and vision for innovation, and together, we will leverage our engineering capabilities, experience and solutions to build the KSA national network to the highest possible standard. We are honored to make the investment necessary to extend our partnership with STC."
The arrangement builds on the existing strategic relationship between STC and Corning, which has already supplied more than 1.5 million kilometers of optical fiber in STC's KSA network. As part of this strategic relationship, the two companies will also develop a program to provide advanced technical training to STC fiber engineers and technicians.
"STC is building the largest fiber network in the history of the kingdom," said Eng. Nasser Sulaiman Al Nasser, STC COO. "I am delighted to see us strike such an initiative with Corning, which will help meeting STC's strategic goals for digital Services, and will align with the objectives of the National Transformation Program (NTP 2020) and Vision 2030. Corning is a pioneer in fiber optics solutions and FTTH, and we are excited to build such an extended strategic relationship with one of the most progressive and internationally renowned companies."
Corning invented the first low-loss optical fiber in 1970, which helped in the launch of the new age of optical communications and ultimately transformed the way the world creates, shares, and consumes data. Since that time, Corning Optical Communications has deployed more than 1 billion kilometers of optical fiber for networks across the globe.