Overview

Optical Cable Corporation was incorporated in the Commonwealth of Virginia in 1983. Our executive offices are located at 5290 Concourse Drive, Roanoke, Virginia 24019 and our telephone number is (540) 265-0690.

We are a leading manufacturer of fiber optic cables primarily sold into the enterprise market, and the premier manufacturer of military ground tactical fiber optic cable for the U.S. military.

Founded in 1983, Optical Cable Corporation pioneered the design and production of fiber optic cables for the most demanding military field applications, as well as of fiber optic cables suitable for both indoor and outdoor use. Our current broad product offering is built on the evolution of these fundamental technologies, and is designed to provide end-users with fiber optic cables that are easy and economical to install, provide a high degree of reliability and offer outstanding performance characteristics.

We sell our products worldwide for uses ranging from commercial and campus installations to customized products for specialty applications and harsh environments, including military applications. We manufacture our high quality fiber optic cables at our ISO 9001:2000 registered and MIL-STD-790F certified facility located in Roanoke, Virginia.

Our tight buffered fiber optic cables are used for high bandwidth transmission of data, video and audio communications. The enterprise market into which we sell includes local area network and premises markets. Our fiber optic cables are well-suited for use in various other short- to moderate-distance applications as well.

Products

We manufacture and market a broad array of fiber optic cables that provide high bandwidth transmission of data, video and voice communications over short- to moderate-distances. Our product line is diverse and versatile, in keeping with evolving application needs of customers within our markets. Our tight buffered fiber optic cables address the needs of the enterprise market in particular, and to a lesser extent the access market.

The following summarizes the major construction types of fiber optic cables we produce and their attributes; however, we produce many other types of fiber optic cables as well:

A-Series Assembly Fiber Optic Cables . Our A-Series fiber optic cables contain one or two optical fibers which are surrounded by a layer of aramid yarn strength members to prevent the optical fiber from being stretched if there is tension on the fiber optic cable. A flexible and resilient thermoplastic outer jacket is then applied to further strengthen and protect the optical fiber. These fiber optic cables are used for jumpers, which are short length patch cords, and for pigtails, which are short lengths of fiber optic cable with a connector on one end. Various special outer jacket materials are offered to provide flammability ratings and handling characteristics tailored to customers’ needs. These fiber optic cables are sometimes privately labeled and often sold to original equipment manufacturers that produce the fiber optic cable assemblies.

B-Series Breakout Fiber Optic Cables . Our B-Series fiber optic cables consist of a number of subcables, each consisting of a single optical fiber, aramid yarn strength members and a subcable jacket. These subcables are generally tightbound in a high performance Core-Locked ™ outer jacket to form the finished multifiber fiber optic cables. Like the A-Series fiber optic cables, the subcables are intended to be terminated directly with connectors. This direct termination feature makes this fiber optic cable type particularly well suited for shorter distance installations, where there are many terminations and termination costs are more significant. The materials and construction of the fiber optic cable permit its use both indoors and outdoors. These features make the fiber optic cables suitable for use in campus and industrial complex installations and between and within buildings since there is no need to splice outdoor fiber optic cables to indoor fiber optic cables at the building entrance.

D-Series Distribution Fiber Optic Cables . Our D-Series fiber optic cables are made with the same tight buffered optical fiber as the B-Series fiber optic cables and with a high performance outer jacket. Unlike the B-Series fiber optic cables, each tight buffered optical fiber in a D-Series fiber optic cable is not covered with a separate subcable jacket, giving the D-Series cables a smaller and more lightweight configuration. Our D-Series fiber optic cables also are available with a Core-Locked ™ jacket. The tight buffered optical fiber and high performance outer jacket make D-Series fiber optic cables rugged and survivable. D-Series fiber optic cables are suitable for longer distance applications, where termination considerations are less important and often traded off for size, weight and cost. They also can be armored for additional protection for use in buried and overhead installations. The high strength to weight ratio of these fiber optic cables makes them well suited for installations where long lengths of fiber optic cables must be pulled through duct systems. D-Series fiber optic cables are used in relatively longer length segments of installations, such as trunking, LAN and distribution applications, optical fiber in the loop, optical fiber to the curb and drop cables.

G-Series Subgrouping Fiber Optic Cables . Our G-Series fiber optic cables combine a number of multifiber subcables, each similar to a D-Series fiber optic cable. Each multifiber subcable generally is tightbound with an elastomeric jacket, providing excellent mechanical and environmental performance. These subcables are further protected with a pressure extruded, high performance Core-Locked ™ outer jacket to form the finished fiber optic cable. This design permits the construction of very high fiber count fiber optic cables. These fiber optic cables are well-suited for installations where groups of optical fibers must be routed to different locations.

Other Fiber Optic Cable Types . We believe that we offer the most comprehensive fiber optic cable product offering for the enterprise market. We produce variations on the basic fiber optic cable styles discussed above for more specialized installations, as well as various hybrid and composite cables (some variations are not available for all cable styles or types). We can armor fiber optic cables with corrugated steel tape or interlocking armor for further protection in certain installations. We offer cables suitable for underground or overhead installations. For overhead installations on utility poles, we offer several self-supporting fiber optic cables, with higher performance outer jackets, as well as M-Series aerial messenger cables which feature a stainless steel or galvanized steel, self-supporting messengered construction. We have fiber optic cables available in several flammability ratings, including plenum for use in moving air spaces in buildings, and riser for less critical flame-retardant requirements. Zero halogen versions of many of our fiber optic cables are available for use in enclosed spaces where there is concern over release of toxic gases during fire. We offer various hybrid and composite fiber optic cables combining different types of optical fiber and/or copper wires, with copper wires being used as power feeds or to facilitate the transition from copper wire to optical fiber-based systems without further installation of fiber optic cables. Our composite cables include a line of security cables which combine copper power feeds with optical fiber in the cables making them particularly well suited for surveillance camera operation. We also offer specialty fiber optic cables, such as military ground tactical, industrial (including tray cables), mining, festoon, and pierside fiber optic cables. Our product offering further includes fiber optic cables complying with or certified to various standards for specialty applications, such as: U.S. Department of Defense MIL-PRF-85045/8A qualification for military ground tactical fiber optic cable; Det Norske Veritas (DNV) type approval certificate for marine shipboard and offshore platform applications; U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) approval for use in mines; and American Bureau of Shipping (ABS) type approved cables. Additionally, we offer our customers a variety of customized constructions to meet their specific communication needs.

Customers

We have a global customer base, selling in over 50 countries in fiscal year 2006. Our customers include distributors, original equipment manufacturers, system integrators, electrical contractors, value added resellers and end users. The following is a partial list of representative types of end users of our fiber optic cables:

  •   Commercial Institutions. Businesses located in offices, retail space, medical facilities, to name a few, are installing or improving networks to distribute increasing volumes of data among workstations. Businesses are using fiber optic backbones to cable their enterprise networks to meet these needs and increasingly are using fiber optic cable in other parts of their networks.

  •   Government Agencies. Government agencies tend to have large buildings or complexes, many people, and the need to access and process large quantities of data. Like commercial institutions, these routinely include high performance LANs with fiber optic segments. Security also may be desired, and therefore, optical fiber to the desk or workstation may be implemented.

  •   Industrial and Manufacturing Facilities. Industrial and manufacturing facilities typically have a more severe environment (often with heavy electrical equipment) than other types of businesses. Fiber optic cable in this environment offers immunity to electrical noise, ruggedness, high information carrying capacity and greater distance capability. Our products are installed in automotive assembly plants, steel plants, chemical and drug facilities, petrochemical facilities and petroleum refineries, mines and other similar environments.

  •   Original Equipment Manufacturers. Original equipment manufacturers typically manufacture fiber optic cable assemblies, which are short lengths of fiber optic cable pre-terminated with connectors. Supporting virtually all segments of the market, these manufacturers consume large quantities of fiber optic cables, which can be privately labeled.

  •   Military. Our core technologies enable us to develop and efficiently produce fiber optic cables for military tactical applications that survive extreme mechanical and environmental conditions. We are certified by the United States Department of Defense (“U.S. DoD”) as a qualified supplier of ground tactical fiber optic cable. Our manufacturing facility has also been certified by the U.S. DoD as a MIL-STD-790F facility, one of the most respected certifications in the defense industry.

  •   Educational Institutions. Colleges, universities, high schools and grade schools are installing and improving their networks for higher data transmission speeds. As interactive learning systems require increased transmission speeds, optical fiber becomes a logical medium.

Our extensive technology base and versatile manufacturing processes enable us to respond quickly to diverse customer needs.

Employees

As of October 31, 2006, we employed a total of 216 persons. None of our employees is represented by a labor union. We have experienced no work stoppages and we believe our employee relations are good.

Item 1A. RISK FACTORS

There are a number of business risks and uncertainties that may adversely affect our financial condition, our results of operations, our liquidity, the trading price of our common shares, and the prospects regarding any of the foregoing—collectively, our business and its prospects. These risks and uncertainties could cause future results to differ from past performance or expected results, including results described in statements elsewhere in this report that constitute “forward-looking statements” under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. The risks that we highlight below are NOT the only ones that we face. We discuss in this section some of the risk factors and uncertainties which we consider to be the most relevant to our specific activities and that we believe, if they actually occurred, could materially and adversely affect our business and its prospects. In addition to the risks and uncertainties included below, other risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, the additional risk factors included in Item 7, “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations—Forward-Looking Information.” Additionally, risks and uncertainties not presently known to us or that we currently believe to be immaterial also may adversely impact our business and its prospects. Should any risks or uncertainties develop into actual events, these developments could have material adverse effects on our business and its prospects.

In addition to historical information, this Annual Report on Form 10-K contains or may contain certain forward-looking statements, within the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Generally, the words “will,” “may,” “should,” “continue,” “believes,” “expects,” “intends,” “anticipates,” “estimates” or similar expressions identify forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements involve certain risks and uncertainties. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contemplated by the forward-looking statements include, among others, the risks and uncertainties identified below and the additional risk factors included in Item 7, “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations—Forward-Looking Information.” We will sometimes set forth examples to further describe a risk factor or otherwise elaborate on a point by using the word “including.” When we use the word including in this Annual Report on Form 10-K or in any of our other disclosures, we always mean “including, but not limited to” rather than including all examples.

A decline in the demand for fiber optic cable generally or in certain applications or for tight buffer fiber optic cable specifically or in certain applications, in the markets we target may cause our sales to fall.

Fiber optic cable, specifically tight buffer fiber optic cable, accounts for almost all of our sales. As a result, any decline in the demand for fiber optic cable generally or tight buffer fiber optic cable specifically will likely adversely affect our business and its prospects, including causing our sales to fall, causing our share price to decline and limiting our future sales prospects. We focus on producing tight buffer fiber optic cable that is used to connect optical networking equipment in short- to moderate-distance applications, including the enterprise market, and to a lesser extent, the metropolitan and access markets. Our future growth is affected by the rate at which optical networking and related optical cabling are deployed in these markets. The desire of organizations to deploy fiber optic cabling depends on such factors as end-user demand for the increased bandwidth made possible by optical networks, as well as a lack of suitable alternative technologies. Additionally, any decline in the demand for fiber optic cable used in short- to moderate-distance applications, such as metropolitan, access and enterprise networks, will likely adversely affect our business and its prospects, including causing our sales to fall, limiting our prospects for the future sales and causing a decline in our share price. If alternative fiber optic cable constructions, such as loose-tube fiber optic cable, become more accepted as alternatives to tight buffer fiber optic cable construction in our target markets, then our business and its prospects could be adversely affected, including material decreases in our sales, adverse affects on our future prospects and potential, significant declines in our share price.

Our ability to remain competitive in the fiber optic cable market is crucial to our continued success.

The market for fiber optic cables, including the short- to moderate-distance markets in which our products are concentrated, is highly competitive. We compete with large, integrated fiber optic cable manufacturers such as Corning Cabling Systems, OFS, Alcatel and Draka, as well as with other large fiber optic cable manufacturers such as General Cable, Belden, Nexans (doing business

as Berk-Tek), CommScope and others. Some of our competitors are more established, benefit from greater market recognition and have much greater financial, research and development, production and marketing resources than we do. Competition could increase if new companies enter the market or if existing competitors expand their product lines.

We are a “microcap” stock with little, if any, coverage by security analysts, and with limited institutional following. Therefore, the price of our common shares is volatile and subject to significant fluctuations.

Optical Cable Corporation has a relatively low market capitalization represented by the total number of common shares issued and outstanding multiplied by the price per common share. Often the capital stock of companies with such low market capitalizations are referred to as “microcap” stocks. As a result of this low market capitalization, it is quite difficult for us to secure coverage by security analysts and to convince institutional investors to invest substantial amounts in our common shares. Additionally, our low market capitalization makes it likely that the sale or purchase of even relatively small blocks of our common shares can result in significant fluctuations in the price of our common shares with or without any underlying change in our financial performance. As a result, the price of our common stock is volatile and subject to significant fluctuations.

We believe our quarterly results may tend to fluctuate due to many factors, including timing of key projects, changing levels of corporate and government spending, fluctuations in spending in certain specialty markets we target, seasonality, and manufacturing yields and efficiencies. The price of our common shares will likely fall if our quarterly results are lower than the expectations of securities analysts, if any, or our shareholders.

We expect our sales and income to fluctuate from quarter to quarter. In future quarters, our operating results may be below the expectations of securities analysts, if any securities analysts are offering coverage of us, or our shareholders. If this occurs, the price of our common shares is likely to fall and you may lose all or part of your investment. A number of factors, many of which are discussed in more detail in other risk factors, may cause variations in the results of our operations, including, but not limited to:

  •   The proportion of our net sales made to distributors relative to other types of customers;

  •   The proportion of large to small orders;

  •   Our product mix, including fluctuations in demand in our target and specialty markets;

  •   The timing of orders that we receive from our customers, including, larger projects;

  •   Fluctuations in spending on fiber optic cable in certain specialty markets we target;

  •   Fluctuations in corporate or government spending;

  •   Seasonality, including affects of weather, construction and annual budgetary cycles on demand;

  •   Changes in the general economic conditions—whether in the U.S., other countries or specific regions that impact spending on fiber optic cabling products;

  •   Changes in the cost and availability of our raw materials;

  •   Our manufacturing capacity, efficiencies and yield; and

  •   Spending for fiber optic cabling in the metropolitan, access and enterprise markets.

A significant percentage of our expenses, including those relating to manufacturing, sales and marketing, and general and administrative functions, are relatively fixed in the short term. As a result, if we experience delays in generating or recognizing revenue, our operating results would be disproportionately affected. You should not rely on our results for one quarter as any indication of our future performance. We believe our results of operations may reflect some seasonality. Historically, our sales are lower in the first half of each fiscal year and higher in the second half of each fiscal year, which we believe may be partially due to construction cycles and budgetary cycles of our customers.

If our supplier relationships are disrupted or if costs or availability of our raw materials change, our operating results may suffer.

Our business and its prospects are affected by the cost and availability of raw materials. We currently rely on a limited number of suppliers for certain of our raw materials, including optical fiber, aramid yarns, plastics and other raw materials. We do not have long-term agreements with all of these suppliers. In fact, some of our suppliers of optical fiber are also major competitors in the market for fiber optic cable. For example, we may buy some of our optical fiber from a supplier that also offers fiber optic cables that compete with our fiber optic cables. These raw materials are critical to our production of fiber optic cables. Our business and its prospects, including our financial condition, future prospects, and results of operations, could be adversely affected by any disruption in our supply of raw materials or any increase in our costs resulting from our suppliers reducing the amount of optical fiber available to us, increasing their prices, lengthening the lead time for orders or otherwise impairing our ability to secure optical fiber, aramid yarns, plastics or other raw materials on competitive terms.

Potential strategic alliances may not achieve their objectives.

We intend to explore strategic alliances designed to increase the use of our manufacturing capacity, to increase distribution of our products, to secure supplies of raw materials and to expand our product offerings. We may not be successful in developing these strategic alliances. Moreover, alliances that Optical Cable Corporation does develop may not achieve their strategic objectives, and parties to our strategic alliances may not perform as contemplated.

If a disaster struck our primary business facility, our business, results of operations and financial condition may be harmed.

We believe that our success to date has been, and future results of operations will be, dependent in large part upon our ability to provide prompt and efficient service to our customers. As a result, any disruption of our day-to-day operations could cause a significant decline in our sales, negatively impact our financial performance and cause a decline in our share price. Our manufacturing operations, marketing, management information systems, customer service and distribution functions are housed in a single facility in Roanoke, Virginia. A fire, flood, earthquake, terrorist attack, act of war, military conflict, or any other disaster affecting our facility could disable the functions performed at our Roanoke, Virginia facility. Any significant damage to this facility would have a material adverse effect on our business and its prospects, including our results of operations and financial condition.

Item 1B. UNRESOLVED STAFF COMMENTS

None