Verizon confirms FTTP vendors

In a presentation to the UBS investor conference today, Verizon Communications Vice Chairman and President Lawrence Babbio Jr. confirmed his company’s selection of access equipment vendor Advanced Fibre Communications as its primary supplier for the fiber-to-the-premises rollout that will begin next year.

Telephony reported news of AFC’s selection in mid-October, but Babbio’s presentation today was the company’s first definitive public comment on the subject. In addition, Babbio also named the suppliers for the passive elements of the system. Sumitomo Electric Lightwave, Pirelli Communications Cables & Systems (North America), and Fiber Optic Network Solutions will provide all the fiber cabling and other outside plant equipment for the project. Verizon expects to announce contracts with several other passive-element vendors shortly, the company said.

With its FiberDirect platform, AFC is guaranteed 100% of Verizon’s market share for optical line terminals (OLTs, the central office equipment) through 2005 and 100% of Verizon’s optical network terminals (ONTs, the customer premises equipment) through 2004. Through 2005, AFC will get at least half of Verizon’s ONT market share. However, a Verizon spokesman would not say whether additional vendors would be sought beyond that. "Right now they’re the only one, the primary one," a Verizon spokesman said.

Babbio also reiterated the company’s goal of rolling out fiber to 1 million homes across nine states in 2004--a mix of new or "greenfield" communities as well as those with existing copper infrastructure--without increasing the company’s overall wireline capital expenditures beyond the $7 billion it expects to spend this year.

In the same presentation, Babbio also announced that about 21,600 employees, including 5600 union members, will leave the company by the end of this week after volunteering to take an early retirement buyout offer from the company. The offer was targeted primarily to managers in Verizon’s Domestic Telecom and Information Services business units as well as to union employees in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast, Verizon said. The cut represents a 9.5% reduction in Verizon’s overall workforce.