Can you say FTTN?

BellSouth, a pioneer in FTTN, already serves about 500,000 customers with FTTC networks in the Atlanta metro area. Barring any regulatory discouragement, the telco plans to replace its FTTC strategy and begin deploying A-PON-based FTTH in greenfield networks sometime this year, Kettler says.

FTTH eventually may become cost-effective to overlay on copper in order to realize additional service opportunities, but unlike Verizon's northeast territory, most of BellSouth's copper is buried, Kettler says.

“If we had more aerial cable, it would be more attractive,” he says.

Qwest Communications is looking at other technologies that drive fiber further into the neighborhood but had no comment on its FTTN vision at press time, according to a company spokeswoman. The ILEC made its most visible FTTN play last year with the launch of Choice TV in Phoenix. The commercial very high bit-rate DSL (VDSL)-based CATV, Internet access and telephony service brings fiber to within 4000 feet of each customer. The network can support up to 180 digital TV channels and Internet access/data at 26 Mb/s downstream and 3 Mb/s upstream, as well as full-blown POTS services, via twisted pair.

Although approximately 250,000 subscribers have signed up for the service to date, and 25% to 30% have opted for the Internet access, Phoenix will remain Choice TV's only market until vendors— now Nextel Communications and Motorola—can drop the cost of the VDSL infrastructure equipment by at least 40%, the spokeswoman says.

As RCN's initiative illustrates, the rest of the world is not about to stand still while the ILECs plot their fiber futures. CLECs, independents, housing developers, utility companies, municipalities and even big cities and federal governments are getting into the FTTH act (see story on page 71).

“The trend in 2001 is going to be municipalities putting in FTTH infrastructures for their citizenry,” says Darryl Ponder, CEO of Optical Solutions, which manufactures the FiberPath RF-based PON system. “In 2000, municipalities were taking business away from ILECs 3000 to 5000 customers at a time. In 2001, they will be taking 20,000 to 100,000, and the ILECs will really start to take note. They'll not only have to analyze FTTH and make recommendations, they'll have to start to deploy it.”

Optical Solutions, which has shipped 6500 units to date, with about 3500 actually in service at year's end, expects its shipments to increase by a magnitude of 10 each year for the next several years, Ponder says, adding that an ILEC he declines to identify is field trialing FiberPath and preparing to install it for commercial use in this month. The ILEC is among 42 service providers evaluating the system and the 10 to 20 actively deploying it in the field, he adds.

“We expect to have some major contracts in 2001 with well-recognized names in the industry, which will be deploying FTTH in entire Tier 2 or 3 cities,” he says. “Currently, FTTH is 20% more expensive than HFC on a total system installed cost. I expect in the course of 2001 that those numbers will reverse.”

Even if they don't, telcos that “wait for market demand to roll out fiber access networks will be late to the game,” says a Forrester Research report. “Winning telcos will bite the bullet and start deploying fiber today in order to future-proof their networks, boost revenues and fend off competition.”

When the number of consumers with broadband access nears 5 million, content providers are going to start pouring big money into broadband content and service creation, says Eluminant's Holley. The end result will be “the Moore-Calfe effect” [a combination of Moore's Law and Met-calfe's Law]. More people will want to require more bandwidth so they can play the latest and greatest video game with their online friends.

Suffice to say, the FTTN snowball is rolling and picking up speed. Service providers that want to survive the next broadband access storm more successfully than they are handling the current one had better get rolling, too.

Annie Lindstrom is a freelance writer based in New York . Her e-mail address is annielindstrom@aol.com.