The Association for Passive Optical LAN Honors 2021 Award Winners

NEW YORK, February 10, 2022 (Newswire.com) - The Association for Passive Optical LAN (APOLAN), the non-profit organization advocating for the education about and global adoption of Passive Optical Local Area Networks (POL), is pleased to announce the winners of the 2021 APOLAN Awards. The awards recognize member companies that have embraced the association's mission to educate, advocate and promote POL. Award winners were honored during an award ceremony at the APOLAN Annual Member Meeting on Feb. 1, 2022, in Orlando, Florida. 

"The APOLAN Member Awards recognize the industry's innovators, promoters and educators that have excelled at driving the adoption of POL in the past year," said Brian Hardy, executive vice president at ITConnect and newly appointed APOLAN chairman. "Honorees' contributions have been vital in driving POL's continued growth and demonstrating POL's value as the most viable solution for in-building networking challenges."

Innovation Award

The APOLAN Innovation Award recognizes member companies that have promoted innovative POL advancements to meet industry technical challenges. 

This year's Platinum winner is Cailabs for "Facilitating POLs Over Existing Multimode Fiber Cabling Infrastructures with MPLC-Enabled Technology." Cailabs enabled the deployment of GPON, XGS-PON and future xPON technology over existing multimode fiber infrastructure systems, which make up 78% of all fiber optic cabling. By using advanced modal adaption techniques, optical dispersion is minimized to allow carriage of PON technology over MMF. This innovation opens a significantly larger market for Passive LAN solutions. Cailabs has already successfully upgraded three manufacturing plants with Passive Optical LAN solutions over existing MMF infrastructure, which would not have previously been possible.

This year's Gold winners are ITConnect for "Northern Arizona University POL" and Corning for "TIA SPIRE Smart Building Program Promoting Fiber to the Edge."

Northern Arizona University has significantly adopted passive optical LAN, integrating five buildings with several separate projects so far. The university's new POL solution is designed to facilitate all campus systems, including door access controllers, HVAC controllers, lighting and sensor systems, voice and data, security surveillance and analog voice services. These projects demonstrate how POL is the perfect solution for higher education campuses requiring high data rates running across multiple platforms. 

Corning is a founding member of the TIA SPIRE Smart Building Program and was instrumental in the creation of the Connectivity Section of the UL/TIA SPIRE assessment and the promotion of fiber-to-the-edge technologies to enable a future-ready smart building. Corning championed getting fiber-to-the-edge and hybrid fiber power cable infrastructure included in the SPIRE assessment and, along with TIA - the standards organization that developed the TIA568 structured cabling standards - has been promoting smart building technologies and the need to think differently about networks.

Promotion Award

The APOLAN Promotion Award recognizes member companies that have implemented promotional initiatives contributing to the awareness of POL and its benefits.

This year's Platinum winners are AECOM, Corning and UberData Networks for "Key Inflection Points for Passive Optical LAN." The companies played an essential role in developing, presenting and promoting APOLAN's Key Inflection Points for Passive Optical LAN webinar. This webinar provided a unique way of showing the advantages of POL in a cross-section of vertical markets. It was promoted by POL experts and helped people who are new to POL understand that this technology can serve their networking needs.

This year's Gold winner is Corning, with supporting companies Qypsys and DIRTT, for "Smart Building Summits." Corning hosted three virtual summits in 2021, bringing together key smart building ecosystem players to discuss changing the way networks are designed, built and managed for future-ready, sustainable smart buildings. Because POL is a different approach to how traditional networks are designed and implemented, educating and promoting the benefits to architects, consultants, general contractors and end users are critical to moving the industry forward. The virtual summits are helping to get earlier visibility and support for POL.

Education Award

The APOLAN Education Award recognizes member companies that have implemented learning initiatives contributing to the education of POL and its benefits.

This year's Platinum winners are AECOM, ITConnect, OCC and Tellabs, for "Passive Optical LAN: Its Technical Challenges & Deployment Successes." AECOM played a key role in APOLAN's Passive Optical LAN Technical Challenges & Deployment Successes webinar, which focused on potential challenges with passive optical LAN installations and demonstrated how these perceived challenges are actually advantages for the technology. POL subject matter experts detailed real-world POL installations that solved critical business problems that would have otherwise gone unsolved for a large audience. 

This year's Gold winners are AECOM and ITConnect for "Fundamentals of Passive Optical LAN." Offered at every BICSI conference since 2014, Fundamentals of Passive Optical LAN is the only face-to-face APOLAN training offered to support the industry in design, installation and integration of Passive Optical LAN. The masterclass remains extremely popular. In the latest BICSI survey, Passive Optical Networks were included for potential further inclusion in BICSI standards and initiatives, reflecting growing interest. Additionally, the course drives traffic to the APOLAN booth, website and events.

About The Association for Passive Optical LAN (APOLAN)
The Association for Passive Optical LAN is a non-profit organization that is driving adoption and educating the market about the technical and economic advantages of passive optical LAN technology. Through its membership, which is comprised of manufacturers, distributors, integrators and consulting companies actively involved in the marketplace, the association hopes to help designers, engineers, architects, building owners, CIOs and IT departments implement and successfully use passive optical LAN. For more information about APOLAN membership opportunities, POL solutions, and member company profiles, visit APOLAN's website.

Contact: 
Deborah Kessler
[email protected]

Source: Association for Passive Optical LAN