New Corning fiber manufacturing facility to open in 2024
Based on a long-term arrangement with AT&T, Corning today announced it’s opening a new fiber manufacturing plant in Gilbert, Arizona. The company said the new plant, set to open in 2024 and employee 250 workers, is part of $500 million it has invested since 2020 “supported by customer commitments.”
Corning and AT&T have both noted their commitments to bridging the digital divide and framed this investment in manufacturing and deploying fiber, respectively, in that context.
“We believe access to broadband means access to opportunity – from education to healthcare to quality of life,” Corning Chairman and CEO Wendell Weeks said in a statement. “Corning is doing our part to make sure everyone—regardless of where they live—has access to reliable, high-speed connections enabled by optical fiber.”
AT&T has articulated its ambition to cover 30 million locations with fiber by 2025. And, in its announcement, Corning called out “record demand” for fiber. Another relevant angle here is federal funding, via the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF), for broadband deployment in un- and underserved market across the country.
Back in 2017, Verizon entered into a three-year, $1.05 billion deal with Corning to supply more than 12 million miles of fiber per year from 2018 through 2020 in support of Verizon’s One Fiber investment plan.
Telecommunications Industry Association CEO David Stehlin, in a statement, said, “Fifty years after Corning invented optical fiber…the need for optical fiber-based services continues to growth. This significant manufacturing investment will increase product availability and support the exciting U.S. government grant programs intended to bring broadband access to all Americans.”
Fiber Broadband Association President and CEO Gary Bolton said in a statement, “We are at the beginning of the largest fiber optics investment cycle in history as our nation works to build the critical broadband infrastructure of the future.” Corning’s strategy, he said, “is significant for our industry as it helps address the record demand for optical cable…Importantly, the capacity being added by Corning will be in place in time to support network buildouts funded by the…$42.5 billion Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) program.”
AT&T CEO John Stankey said in a statement, “This investment is a significant step forward for our country and building world-class broadband networks that will help narrow the nation’s digital divide. This new facility will provide additional optical cable capacity to meet the record demand the industry is seeing for fast, reliable connectivity. We are also working with Corning to create training programs to equip the next generation of technicians with the skills to build the networks that will expand high-speed internet access to millions of Americans.”
For more on AT&T’s fiber-backed efforts to address the digital divide, read the article, “AT&T on bridging the digital divide: Access, affordability, adoption.”
