For broadband operators navigating an increasingly competitive landscape, multi-dwelling units (MDUs) represent both a massive growth opportunity and a complex deployment headache. High density and underserved resident bases make MDUs an attractive target for subscriber acquisition, yet physical infrastructure limitations in brownfield properties frequently stall projects or inflate capital expenditures beyond viability.
In a recent interview on the award-winning Connected Nation podcast at Fiber Connect 2026, Jeff Glahn, Senior Vice President of Global Sales at Harmonic, sat down with host Jessica Denson to unpack these challenges. During the session, Glahn detailed how Harmonic's latest solution, the SeaStar MDU device is fundamentally altering the economics and technical viability of multi-dwelling fiber rollouts.
"All of our conversations are around growth listening to clients and prospects about the market, identifying what problems they have and what opportunities they see. That guides our roadmap. SeaStar was conceptualized directly via conversations with the telco and ISP community.
— Jeff Glahn, SVP of Global Sales, Harmonic
The Brownfield MDU Dilemma
The primary barrier to delivering gigabit broadband within established apartment complexes, condominiums, and multi-tenant structures is interior wiring. While running fiber to the property boundary is straightforward, extending fiber to every individual living unit often requires intrusive structural work, expensive labor, and protracted negotiations with property owners.
Historically, operators facing coax-wired MDU interiors had to choose between two unappealing options:
- Absorb heavy rewiring expenses: Tear through walls, run new fiber drops, and deal with property management friction, drastically extending ROI timelines.
- Skip the property entirely: Concede the multi-dwelling market to incumbents or legacy infrastructure.
SeaStar was engineered explicitly to eliminate this trade-off.
Enter SeaStar: Fiber Performance Over Existing Coax
SeaStar delivers a plug-and-play solution designed to leverage existing internal coaxial wiring while delivering fiber-grade speeds and reliability to residents. By removing the need to rewire the building interior, operators can bring high-speed broadband online in days rather than months.
Global Momentum: The strategy is already proving successful in international markets. European operator DNA in Finland recently announced its deployment of SeaStar to streamline multi-dwelling connectivity across its footprint, proving that brownfield fiber migration is a universal priority across North America, Europe, and beyond.
Beyond solving the physical cabling barrier, SeaStar fits seamlessly into Harmonic's broader vision for open, flexible broadband architecture.
Driving Agility Through Open Architecture and AI Insights
A central pillar of Harmonic’s market strategy is vendor interoperability. Traditional broadband access deployments often trap operators in proprietary ecosystems where OLT (Optical Line Terminal) hardware is locked to specific ONTs (Optical Network Terminals) in the home.
Harmonic breaks this paradigm by offering world-class OLT technology paired with an open ONT strategy. Operators can drop in Harmonic’s lightweight, high-density OLTs without forcing end-user ONT replacements significantly lowering total cost of ownership and speeding up migration schedules.
Looking ahead, Harmonic is integrating intelligent software capabilities into its core platforms. By leveraging artificial intelligence and agentic network management tools, Harmonic is enabling operators to:
- Consolidate fragmented operational tools: Streamline dozens of disparate support systems (OSS) into unified visibility dashboards.
- Proactive Network Operations: Transition from reactive troubleshooting to predictive health monitoring, identifying potential service degradations and resolving issues before end subscribers are impacted.
The Path Ahead: Modernizing Fiber at Scale
Whether navigating federal funding programs like BEAD, expanding regional fiber footprints, or modernizing MDU infrastructure, service providers need solutions that balance technical agility with commercial efficiency.
Through dedicated solutions like SeaStar and an open-access approach to hardware and software, Harmonic continues to consult with operators of all sizes from local ISPs to global Tier-1 providers to build high-performance networks tailored to modern subscriber expectations.
Interested in streamlining your MDU fiber deployments?
Learn more about SeaStar™ and Harmonic’s open-access broadband architecture by visiting our resource center or reaching out to our global sales team.