Verizon Communications Inc. has awarded Motorola Inc. a five-year contract to supply ATM-based BPON equipment for its fiber-to-the-premises effort. Terms of the contract were not disclosed.
Motorola is Verizon’s second “active component” vendor on FTTP. The first was AFC, which is now owned by Tellabs.
Mark Marchand, director of media relations at Verizon, tells xchange that the carrier always intended to use a second vendor for the active component piece of its FTTP, adding “we tend to be a two-vendor company.” He says that makes sense, given the size of the FTTP build, which will take place in half of the states within Verizon’s region.
Under the contract announced today, Motorola will provide Verizon with advanced electronic equipment that will be installed in Verizon central offices, as well as at customer locations. This equipment includes high-density, multiprotocol optical line terminals (Motorola AXS2200 OLT), intelligent optical network terminals (Motorola residential and business ONTs) and video-optimized optical amplifiers (Motorola EDFAs).
However, Motorola was involved in the FTTP build prior to the announcement today; in a separate multi-year contract announced in October 2004, Verizon selected Motorola to help build the video network infrastructure portion of FTTP, providing head-end technology, digital set-tops and integration services.
In 2004, Verizon began building its new all-fiber network to replace traditional copper-wire connections and directly links homes and businesses to the Verizon network. Verizon’s FTTP network currently passes more than 1 million homes and businesses across 14 of the 29 states the company serves. Verizon plans to double its FTTP network deployment in 2005, as well as launch its first television services on its new FTTP network in the second half of the year.
While the Tellabs/AFC and now the Motorola equipment Verizon is currently using and plans to install for the next few months for FTTP is ATM-based BPON, the company has announced its plans to eventually move to an IP-based GPON FTTP architecture. “GPON is something we're evaluating with the vendor community, especially 2.4 gig, and we're looking to start rolling it out in 2006,” Mark Marchand, director of media relations at Verizon, told xchange earlier this month.
This news, of course, points to a larger trend of service providers adopting IP both to reach higher bandwidth capacity as well as to create networks that can deliver a wider variety of voice, video and data services, and without doing overlays.
Marchand tells xchange that Verizon expects to name its GPON vendor(s) “probably early next year; best case is end of this year.”
Verizon’s current FTTP BPON systems provide 622mbps downstream and 155mbps upstream, typically divided by 32 individual homes. That allows Verizon, initially, to offer customers its FiOS-brand data products at 5mbps or 15mbps downstream and 2mbps upstream, or 30mbps downstream and 5mbps upstream. Verizon plans to begin offering video services to customers served by its BPON systems later this year, according to Marchand.
GPON technology, however, will enable Verizon to turn it up a notch, offering 1.2gbps downstream and 622mbps upstream, or 2.4gpbs and 1.2gbps. “What it will do is enhance our ability to offer more applications, including variations of IP TV,” says Marchand, adding that Verizon will unleash its first digital broadcast video offering on its FTTP network later this year, and will start rolling out IP-based services after that. “Overall, BPON provides a terrific platform for all three of the so-called triple play, voice, data and video -- far more than any cable TV or other RBOC system being built now and for the foreseeable future,” Marchand continues.
In addition to the bandwidth, GPON allows Verizon “to look at more cost-effective architectures, such as Ethernet,” he adds. “Overall, GPON gives us the capability to offer more services and enhance the performance for our end users,” he continues. “We are now evaluating the move to GPON with our vendor community.”
Moving to GPON will require both new optical network terminals (ONTs) at the home as well as new optical line terminals (OLTs) in the central office, according to Marchand. He notes there are 10 to 15 vendors in the GPON space, but wouldn’t disclose which ones Verizon is considering or the size of award it intends to make. “Perhaps...some existing vendors could be involved, or totally new ones,” he says.
When Verizon moves to GPON, Marchand says, the plan is to use GPON “on go-forward basis” but to leave in existing BPON equipment.
