RBOC Threesome Provides More Details on FTTP Activities

Executives from BellSouth, SBC and Verizon, at the recent TELECOM ’03 event in Las Vegas, provided more details about the companies’ collective and individual plans for FTTP deployment. Of course, the trio allied this summer to send out a joint RFP on PON-based FTTP, but until the session on FTTP at USTA’s conference this fall, had provided few details about the status of their work on the project.

Verizon CTO and Senior Vice President of Technology Mark Wegleitner, a panelist at the mid- October event, said the company expected to be in the labs with FTTP equipment in the next few weeks, aiming to do first office applications in the second or third quarter of 2004. The company could pass 500,000 to 1 million homes with FTTP in the first year, but it depends on regulations, he added.

The RBOCs are unhappy with regulations unveiled in the Triennial Review, said Keith Cambron, president and CEO of SBC Laboratories, who was also on the FTTP panel at TELECOM ’03. The regulations would require them, in an overbuild FTTP situation, to either maintain copper infrastructure or unbundle a narrowband component of the new broadband network to competitors wanting to offer voice in those markets, he explained.

BellSouth planned to start lab tests of the technology Nov. 14, said Peter Hill, the third panelist and vice president of technology planning and deployment. Field trials should commence in the second half of 2004.

SBC didn’t provide any timelines relating to its FTTP activities.

Since starting initial work on the joint RFP in February, the companies have learned four key things, said Wegleitner. “We are absolutely certain that the supplier community is fully engaged,” he said. The products meeting the RBOC threesome’s basic requirements are available for deployment. As was expected, further development is required on operational support, ONT powering options and RF adapters related to FTTP, he said. And the RBOCs now have a better understanding of the economics of deploying FTTP.

The RBOCs asked vendors involved in the RFP to make economic assumptions based on a 2.5 million to 8.5 million homes passed scenario, said Wegleitner, who added that the telcos did not make a commitment to actually implement that size deployment. Vendors were asked to provide a five-year forecast at three volume levels with component pricing. Equipment in the scope of this particular RFP includes OLTs, voice gateways, video OLCs, ONT/ONUs, element management systems and optional terminal equipment.

The RBOCs’ economic requirements were that the systems support both residential and business applications with a single platform; FTTP for greenfield deployment would be a nobrainer; the cost for overlays would be as variable as possible; and the deep fiber would lower the telcos’ outside plant lifecycle costs. Additionally, FTTP would: supplement DSL as an economically superior data offering; enable cost-effective video delivery at the discretion of the carriers; and eliminate dispatches for provisioning, added Wegleitner.

“Certainly greenfield is the fiber choice and we want to stop spending on copper and start spending on fiber,” said Cambron.

Although Cambron said it wouldn’t dissuade SBC from using fiber in greenfield deployments, he said the fact that regulations discourage overbuilds does raise the question of how you explain to customers why people in new homes will have access to the fiber and all the bandwidth and services it can support while existing neighborhoods in town are not fibered.

“We’ve talked for years about the digital divide, so here we are creating national public policy that creates the digital divide,” Cambron told xchange.

The regulatory requirement that the telcos maintain their copper plant for competitors to use or unbundle voice on the overbuild FTTP network is problematic for the ILECs, Cambron explained, because a key justification of moving to fiber is so you no longer have to maintain the old copper plant. He added that unbundling a component of the FTTP network to competitors would require extensive investment by the ILEC in OSS to allow the competitive carrier(s) to test, provision and maintain their services on the FTTP network.

Lucent, Juniper Deliver

Lucent Technologies and Juniper Networks, which formed a strategic partnership in May, now offer an integrated IP VPN allowing service providers to offer corporate customers new IP-enabled frame services over existing Lucent multiservice switches and Juniper Networks routing platforms. The companies also announced a capability that enables service providers to carry ATM and frame relay services over MPLS networks while maintaining the same quality and reliability available today on an ATM-based network. This capability will be part of the Lucent Juniper Networks Multiservice MPLS Core Solution when it is available in the first quarter of next year.

NTT, Motorola Join on M-MPLS

NTT and Motorola Inc. recently did what they say was the first public demonstration of M-MPLS (Multicast Multiprotocol Label Switching) technology. M-MPLS is a broadband transport mechanism that enables new network services requiring broadcast and quality of service features that are not possible with current multicasting technology. The two companies are developing several new service applications, the first of which are video distribution over DSL and FTTH connections.

Canadian SP Taps Tekelec

Distributel, a Canadian provider of competitive long-distance services, has selected SanteraOne for multiswitch deployment. Distributel’s purchase of four SanteraOne switches enables the company to eliminate its dependence on telco-based switching. As a result, Distributel anticipates significant network cost reductions and the ability to offer new services. SanteraOne is Tekelec’s carrier-grade integrated voice and data switching solution, delivering key applications such as full-feature IXC tandem, Class 4/5, PRI offload, packet/cell switching and voice over broadband services on a single platform.

Fujitsu to Resell PON

In a move to bring a PON-based solution into its product line in light of the ILECs’ recent interest in such FTTP technology, Fujitsu Network Communications Inc. says it intends to resell the multiaccess platform, which includes a passive optical networking component, from startup vendor Entrisphere. The Entrisphere BLM 1500 platform, which is not yet commercially available and has no publicly announced trial customers, is OSMINE certified and FSAN compliant. FSAN is an 8-year-old industry consortium, including the RBOCs, that is focused on ATM-based PON and future gigabit PON technology; the group makes technical PONrelated recommendations relating to the ITU.

Share this article: Email, Slashdot, Digg, Del.icio.us, Yahoo!MyWeb, Windows Live Favorites, Furl
Add this article feed to: RSS, My Yahoo, Newsgator, Bloglines