To all, some news about what BLS is doing with HLIT's equipment.
teledotcom.com
Several providers have announced plans of late to deploy fiber in the local loop, which could result in hundreds of thousands of homes hooked up to fiber by year's end. The latest push, which is anchored by a BellSouth Corp. initiative, doesn't reflect a new appreciation of optical networking. Rather, it underscores some changes in fundamental issues that had blocked earlier wide-scale deployment.
Chief among these changes are the reduction of fiber optic cable costs (nearly 10 to 1 for some components) and the emergence of a standard born out of the Full Service Access Network (FSAN) consortium called ATM Passive Optical Network (APON) (see "Less Is More," Jan. 25). The drive-which involves ClearWorks Technologies Inc. (Houston) and SBC Communications Inc. as well-has also gained momentum because of growing concerns that competing services, such as digital subscriber line (DSL) and cable modems, may not be able to meet long-term broadband demands (see "Critical Mass" ).
"This has been an old thing that providers have been looking at for years," says Chris Whitely, project manager of local access alert at Insight Research Corp. (Parsippany, N.J.). "They have been considering deploying fiber into the neighborhood, into the home-and the major impediment has been cost. It's mainly the cost of laying the fiber to each home, but it's also that they have a legacy infrastructure. And it's difficult to get them to deploy fiber where they already have infrastructure."
BellSouth's plan calls for bringing fiber directly to 400 Atlanta homes to deliver video and data using the asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) data networking protocol. Yet its approach differs from ClearWorks in that it will retrofit existing homes by replacing copper lines for data and entertainment video, while retaining the existing copper infrastructure for phone lines.
The BellSouth approach also differs in terms of scope. It expects to connect 300,000 homes via fiber-to-the-curb set-ups in its nine-state coverage area by year's end. This involves bringing the optical network directly into local pedestal boxes where the connection can then be split into separated lines for individual homes. The carrier also expects to begin a project later this year that will eventually connect an additional 200,000 homes in Atlanta and southern Florida. Beyond this, BellSouth hopes to use its Atlanta project as a springboard to implement a five-year program to bring fiber directly to 500,000 homes by working primarily through greenfield sites.
For BellSouth, like its competitors, optical networking is a future play. "I'm really enthused about the opportunity we have here," says David Kettler, BellSouth vice president of science and technology. "The fiber medium carries the greatest bandwidth available, so it is the best medium to position for the plethora of services. High-speed data, entertainment video, telephony-it's just the best medium."
HLIT will pass 300,000 BLS customers by year end.
Tim |
