Niall Robinson explores cost-effective AI-ready rural fiber architectures at Mountain Connect 2026
Session will examine how pluggable coherent optics enable 100G overlays on existing fiber networks, consolidate fiber resources and allow remote OLTs to be extended deeper into the network
- Speakers: Niall Robinson, VP global business development at Adtran; Kevin Affolter, senior director of product marketing and business development at Coherent; Kevin Driscoll, senior vice president at Netceed; Brian Greenlee, network engineer/administrator at Volt Broadband
- Topics: Pluggable optic innovation improves access architectures
- When: Tuesday, August 11, 10:15 a.m. MDT
- Where: Mountain Connect, Sheraton Downtown Denver Hotel, Denver, Colorado, USA https://mountainconnect.org
As service providers expand rural broadband networks, traditional transport architectures face growing scalability and cost challenges. New traffic demands driven by AI applications, cloud services and evolving broadband usage patterns are increasing pressure on operators to support growth as efficiently as possible. Deploying active optical transport equipment deeper into rural networks can increase infrastructure complexity and operating costs while making future expansion more difficult. Operators need flexible approaches that make better use of existing infrastructure while supporting scalable network growth and stronger investment certainty. Advances in optical technology are creating new opportunities to simplify access architectures, improve scalability and optimize capital spending across broadband deployments.
In this session, Niall Robinson and fellow panelists will explore how new pluggable coherent optics can reshape rural fiber broadband network architecture. They will explain how extending remote OLTs deeper into the network can reduce optical transport requirements while lowering capital costs for both active optical transport and outside plant materials. The discussion will connect architectural choices to business outcomes, including network scalability, deployment efficiency and return on investment. Attendees will gain practical insights into building more cost-effective rural broadband networks that can scale to support future AI-driven traffic growth.