R&M Hosts Open House to Welcome Customers and Partners to its North American Headquarters

More than 100 visitors from leading San Francisco Bay Area and Silicon Valley companies met with R&M co-owners Martin Reichle and CEO Michel Riva, who provided an overview of the company and its North American expansion. Visitors were also given a tour of the refreshed R&M production facility, lab and warehouse. Several of the company's premier products were demonstrated and these included:

• Netscale, the world's highest-density fiber cable management solution and the first to feature integrated intelligent infrastructure management functionality. The Netscale solution offers up to 67 percent higher density than the competition and promises to eliminate a host of cable management problems that plague data centers today. This ultra-high density platform utilizes LC patch cables with the smallest diameter cordage and an innovative boot release which eliminates the need for special tools.
• Anaconda, a high capacity fiber distribution system designed to meet the demands of the modern data center environment. The system offers unparalleled flexibility to accommodate today's major termination techniques and high fiber count cables.

Guests were also treated to product demonstrations by R&M partner companies Dura-Line, OFS Fitel, Prysmian Group and US Conec:

• Dura-Line - a leading international manufacturer and distributor of communication and energy infrastructure systems including conduit, cable-in-conduit, duct, pipe, and accessories. The company's high-density polyethylene (HDPE) conduit and air-blown fiber solutions were demonstrated by Pacific Sales Manager Bob Parrish and Enterprise Western Regional Sales Manager Scott McGinn. They highlighted how companies can "clean up the bird's nest" with air-blown fiber and how micro duct system is the desired solution for long fiber runs. Dura-line's highly flexible duct allows cable to be blown for very long distances and is packaged on reels which allow for continuous runs of over 5,000 feet. Traditional PVC duct banks require "Sticks" which have to be pieced together.

Scott McGinn said of Dura-Line's air-blown fiber solutions, "We're able to install fiber counts ranging from one strand of fiber to 432 strands of fiber with a jetting machine that uses a combination of floating the cable with compressed air and pushing it at the same time. An installation distance upwards of 10,000 feet in a continuous run is possible. This enables customers to do moves, adds and changes at very low cost and in a short time. The fiber can be installed upwards of 500 feet a minute. If the customer wants a different type of fiber or a different fiber count, the existing fiber can be blown out of the micro duct once the fiber is installed. That fiber can be reused at another location and the new fiber can be reinstalled virtually in the same day."

• OFS - designs, manufactures and provides optical fiber, fiber optic cable, connectivity, FTTx and specialty optical fiber solutions and fusion splicers, including the NINJA NJ001 Fusion Splicer. The NINJA NJ001 product is a single-fiber fusion fixed V-groove hand-held clad alignment splicer. Fusion Splicer Sales Manager Steve Scudder explained, "The NINJA Splicer features the industry's first detachable V-groove that technicians can easily remove and clean in the field. Typically, the biggest problem with splicer V-grooves is that they become dirty, which leads to poor alignment and a good bit of dB loss. This removable V-groove helps keep these fusion splicers operating and out of our service shop."

OFS also displayed several new and innovative, high count fiber optic cable designs. Product Manager Dan Hendrickson showed a new series of flame-rated cables that are ideal for the growing hyper-scale data center market. These central core ribbon cables feature 288-864 fibers along with unique, low smoke zero halogen (LSZH) materials. The resulting cables offer highly flexible jackets in very robust cable designs.

Dan also displayed rollable ribbons which appear to be the next generation of cable technology. OFS' outside plant (OSP) Rollable Ribbon Cable offers 1728 fibers in a cable design with six color-coded buffer tubes, each containing 288 fibers. This new cable appears to be a seamless fit with traditional cabling methods and also bridges the traditional methods of accessing and handling a loose tube cable along with the compact features offered by this new technology. The new rollable ribbons also allow splicers to use more productive mass fusion splicer equipment which allows cable designs to become more densely packed to help save on duct space.

• Prysmian Group - a world leader in the telecommunication and energy cable industry, displayed its broad range of fiber optic cabling solutions. They include various cable constructions such as loose-tube for indoor/outdoor and outdoor ribbon and drop cables. Also, they displayed their complete portfolio of premise cables for building applications and data centers, as well as application-specific cables including ADSS and high count ribbon designs. Product Manager Denise Collado explained, "We have single-unit and multi-unit interconnect and trunk cables for data center applications. Everything from one-fiber to 3,456 fiber specialty cables for data centers is available." National Sales Manager Chris Isetts said, "We also have specialty cables for industrial use, where heavy crush and harsh chemical resistance is needed. There are certain qualifications that the cables must meet and various jacket materials are used. We're also working with R&M in developing additional higher fiber count cables and microfiber cables for the data center market. We supply both Corning and Draka fiber; customers often specify that they absolutely need Draka or Corning fiber, and we can accommodate them."
• US Conec - a leader in providing passive components for high density optical interconnects, is recognized in the multifiber connector industry for very tight tolerance high-fiber-count low-loss connectors. "We're here today displaying the various types of high-fiber-count connectors that we offer from 12 fiber, to 32 fiber, even up to 72 fiber multi-layer," said Ron Erskine, Sales Manager, Americas. "We're also displaying the different boot packages which allow you to terminate a connector on bare ribbon or a jacketed cable. Our lensed ferrules help fiber replace copper on the backplane. Our cleaners keep fiber-optic connectors clean."

Pat McMurray, President of T&R Communications, Inc. commented about R&M's acquisition of Silicon Valley-based REALM Communications Group, "Now that I've been here and seen how R&M has integrated with REALM, it makes a lot of sense. R&M has the copper end of it and now you have the fiber end of it with the REALM acquisition. R&M is now about fiber and copper, so it's a good match."

"The open house was the culmination of integrating R&M and REALM, and resulted in new and renewed relationships with customers in Silicon Valley and partners across North America," said R&M USA's President for North America Markus Huber.

"R&M looks forward to a long collaboration with North American customers and partners," said R&M CEO Michel Riva. "Following our global success on all other continents, we are very excited to bring our solutions and customer support to North America."

SOURCE R&M

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