The RBOC request for proposals on fiber-to-the-premises equipment is an ongoing source of buzz at the NFOEC show this week in Orlando. But most of the talk about the RFP is more speculation than new information.
In the fiber optic show’s opening keynote speech Drew Lanza, general partner at Morganthaler Ventures, said despite skeptics, he believes the RBOCs, who are facing a significant decrease in the number of access lines, are serious about fiber to the premises this time. Lanza said the RBOCs, which in 2000 had $170 billion in debt and have since paid down $100 billion in debt, are building up a war chest for FTTP.
William Smith, chief product development and technology officer for BellSouth, which with SBC and Verizon issued the RFP, said there should be no doubt that BellSouth is serious about fiber to the home. That should be evident, he said, given that BellSouth by the end of this year will have more than 1 million FTTC lines deployed. “If that’s not serious, I don’t know what is,” said Smith.
BellSouth added 135,000 new homes onto fiber access networks this year, added Smith. He indicated that number might have approached 200,000 had BellSouth been operating “within the right regulatory environment.” Although new rules on fiber access unbundling – or the lack of it – in the FCC’s recently issued Triennial Review are generally considered favorable to the RBOCs, Smith noted he would like to have the flexibility to choose between fiber to the curb and fiber to the home when looking at different installations. As Peter Hill, vice president of technology planning and deployment with BellSouth, explains in XCHANGE’s Front Page story this month, while the FCC’s order doesn’t require incumbent telcos to unbundle voice on fiber-to-the-home deployments in new fiber builds, they are still required to unbundle voice to competitors in areas where the ILECs update existing networks with fiber, or do “overbuilds”. According to Hill, the order also relieves ILECs from voice unbundling only in fiber-to-the-home builds, but not in cases in which fiber is extended only to the curb.
The three Bells were expected to have recently issued a short list of vendors still under consideration. The carriers have not disclosed who is on that short list, but reports by financial analysts have indicated the list consists of AFC, Alcatel and Motorola.
