AT&T races to launch 13 FTTN markets in 3 weeks

AT&T will begin launching more live markets for its Project Lightspeed fiber-to-the-node (FTTN) services next week, the company said today. Though the carrier has so far only launched those services in two cities (San Antonio in June, followed by Houston), it is still striving to use the last three weeks of the year to meet its goal of launching Lightspeed in 15 markets in 2006.

“I think we’ve got a good shot at hitting the 15 market launches by the end of this year,” AT&T’s chief financial officer Rick Lindner said at an investor conference this morning. “But while that’s kind of a nice headline, the important thing is that we look ahead to 2007. Our expectation in 2007 is one where we’re going to move into a launch and a ramping stage of the product.”

AT&T intentionally avoided expanding its service launches sooner so it could include high-definition television service and the necessary set-top boxes, Lindner said. “Those two components are now in place. Would we have liked it to have gone faster and be in the market faster? Yes. We’re not a company that’s tremendously patient with those things. We want to move forward.”

Still, given the complexity involved in AT&T’s mission, which includes the use of new technology, new software, new set-top boxes and new operating systems, he said, “We’re pleased with where we are. It’s been a tremendous development effort.”

Lindner also reaffirmed AT&T’s commitment to FTTN for overbuilds and fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) for new home construction, despite calls from some (even some inside AT&T, it has been reported) for AT&T to use more FTTH. “The average household is less than 3,000 feet from the fiber serving node,” he said. “When we get inside that 3,000-foot limit, we’re producing in many cases 30 Mb/s or significantly more--55 Mb/s, 60 Mb/s per home.”

What’s more, he said, AT&T will be able to start using pair-bonding technology in the second half of next year to increase the amount of bandwidth the carrier can send over copper to homes outside that 3,000-feet range.

“Through pair-bonding, we’ll be able to not quite double but significantly increase the bandwidth on those households,” he said.