AT&T’s FTTP, FTTN mix in question

AT&T’s mix of fiber-to-the-premises (FTTP) and fiber-to-the-node (FTTN) has become the subject of increasing scrutiny among industry analysts of late. One analyst maintains the company isn’t doing as much FTTP as it promised. Another predicts the company will soon do more FTTP than previously indicated.

In a research note today, Think Equity Partners analyst Eric Kainer said AT&T “has been disingenuous about its greenfield access network architecture” in that the company is still deploying twisted copper pairs to some new homes.

“We’ve consistently said: In most cases for greenfield, it’s going to be fiber,” an AT&T spokesperson told Telephony today. “In some instances, we’ll have to use twisted pair. But it’s a mischaracterization to say it’s prevalent.”

AT&T’s initial Project Lightspeed deployment includes plans to pass 1 million homes with FTTP and 18 million homes with FTTN. That hasn’t changed, the spokesperson said today.

In June the company announced its largest FTTP deployment to date: a 20,000-home master-planned community near Houston.

At the same time, Morgan Keegan analyst Simon Leopold maintains that AT&T is likely to do more FTTP and less FTTN in the future than the carrier has indicated so far. After mining contacts at the recent Fiber-to-the-Home Conference, Leopold said, “AT&T’s switch to FTTH is a matter of ‘when,’ not ‘if.’” Though he didn’t elaborate further, he added, “Timing is uncertain, and AT&T remains steadfastly committed (at least publicly) to its current approach.”

Though analysts once criticized Verizon Communications’ FTTP initiative as overly costly, some now criticize what they see as delays in AT&T’s FTTN initiative (reportedly resulting in large part from problems with IPTV middleware) and wonder whether FTTP’s greater bandwidth--which better accommodates high-definition television--makes it the more appealing choice.