PROFILE COMMSCOPE


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Of micro and mega data centres


A brief history of CommScope


Superior Cable Corporation is


founded in Hickory, North Carolina. Superior’s initial product line is telephone cables, and the company soon starts to produce coaxial cable.


1953


CommScope is excited about the future of optical connectivity in access and enterprise networks, writes Beth Harlen


1961


Superior forms a separate engineering division to develop complete CATV systems, which it wants to market as Comm/Tech, but a Chicago company had already trademarked the name. Instead the unit takes the name of Comm/Scope.


F


Continental Telephone buys Superior Cable and creates CommScope as a division under the new ownership, Superior Continental Corporation.


1967 1976


Superior Continental sells its CommScope division to a group of Hickory-area investors headed by Frank Drendel (still chairman of the board today).


Recognising the importance of optical fibre to the future of cable


television, CommScope merges with Valtec, a vertically integrated


manufacturer of fibre, cable and associated equipment.


1977


ew industries experience as many evolutions – or indeed revolutions – as the communications industry. Driven by an ever-growing hunger for


bandwidth, operators and service providers are increasingly turning to fibre to meet the needs of access networks and data centres of varying size and requirements. With a history that spans more than 40 years, CommScope has completed several transformational acquisitions that it believes have leſt the company in the strongest possible position to capitalise on these network demands. Te most recent took place in August 2015,


when CommScope completed a $3 billion transaction to acquire TE Connectivity’s Broadband Network Solutions (BNS) business. Te term ‘transformational’ is not used lightly; the BNS purchase has significantly changed CommScope in terms of scope and capabilities, not to mention the fact that its technology portfolio has grown with the addition of almost 7,000 patents. Phil Sorsky, vice president of service


1978


CommScope enters the optical fibre business with a standard loose-tube outside plant cable.


Valtec is sold to M/A-COM; thus,


CommScope becomes part of the Cable Home Group at M/A-COM.


1980 1986


M/A-COM sells the Cable Home Group to General Instrument.


providers, CommScope International, described the purchase as ‘finding the missing piece of the jigsaw’ in terms of the technology for physical fibre connectivity to residential and commercial premises. CommScope has also absorbed BNS’ staff who, like its own employees, are used to working within a research and development-driven environment. ‘Tis is all still relatively new, and it will be interesting to see what impact this acquisition has on the industry when the integration of the two businesses has further progressed,’ Sorsky added. It should be noted that CommScope is no


Frank Drendel leads an investor group to buy back the CommScope


division, taking the company private once more.


1988 14 FIBRE SYSTEMS Issue 14 • Winter 2017


stranger to seminal acquisitions; according to the company this is the third such deal in its history. In 2004, the purchase of Avaya’s Connectivity Solutions business with its


Phil Sorsky, CommScope


well-regarded Systimax brand of structured cabling, represented a fundamental shiſt in the CommScope dynamic as the company went from selling mainly into service providers, to an increased focus on enterprise infrastructure. Tis dynamic was further changed by the


2007 acquisition of Andrew Corporation, which added expertise in radio frequency subsystems for wireless networks. Commenting on the acquisitions, Sorsky noted that all these changes have driven CommScope to be more sophisticated in the way it operates internally, and in turn how it engages with its client base. Looking ahead to future opportunities,


Sorsky believes that a divergent trend is beginning to emerge in the industry. On the one hand, he says, we will witness an escalation in the size of data centres as data demands move operators away from small and medium-sized facilities and towards ones at a hyper scale, such as those used by Amazon, Microsoſt and Google. ‘Tese data centre infrastructures are on a scale never seen before,’ said Sorsky, ‘and we’ll see the combination of our Systimax experience and our BNS’ fibre knowledge yielding results that lend themselves to servicing that market.’ Te contrary element of Sorsky’s prediction


is that at the same time he foresees a need for micro data centres at the edge of the network,


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