Verizon FiOS → Re: Official "FIBER" thread... volume 2

Splicer2 or FTTPEngineer,

I'm in upstate South Carolina, Bellsouth territory, and it looks like they have begun FTTC in some areas here (Oconee County - upper-most tip of state). They are laying Superior Essex FiberOptic cable from pedastal to pedastal in front of some homes and from the pedastal to the homes is being run Superior Essex copper drops which has four copper wires inside one sheath (I've stopped and examined it;)) Could this be for VDSL2+? I believe this is what I've read Bellsouth has been talking about doing in conjunction with FTTC. Has four copper wires traditionally been run to homes for POTS/Dial-Up or regular DSL or does this sound like VDSL2+?

One of my neighbors also told me he has been doing Computer Aided Design for Bellsouth's FTTX rollouts at his company. It shouldn't be long before Bellsouth officially hops onto the FTTX bandwagon along with SBC and VZ.

I'm sick and tired of Dial-Up!!!

Thanks guys!

Bell south has announced they will be deploying FTTC. Where and how many I have know idea. Current Buried Service Wires have up to 6 copper prs, because you need 1 pr for each voice line. Their fiber will terminate at the pedestal and copper will continue(I believe within 500ft) from there to the house. Not sure if its vdsl or xdsl or what, not sure how it works in that type of system. I'll have to check out FTTC and see exactly how its going to work. VZ has chosen to go with FTTP,terminating the fiber at the premise so thats what i am familiar with. gotta go back to the Ravens game,seeya!!

Thanks splicer2,
I honestly think SBC and Bellsouth will some time in '05 get more aggresive with FTTP for overbuilds, like VZ is now. The reason I think this is because right now they don't want to shock investors by announcing the more costly FTTP strategy given that they both were trying to raise Billions to purchase Cingular Wireless.

VZ said, "copper technologies are dubious at best" and "fiber is the only way we knew we could blow away bandwidth limitations". I am sure SBC and BLS realize this too. Anything less than FTTP probably won't be able to best what the Cables have up their sleeves for '05 and beyond anyway.

You guys should have plenty of work over the next 5-10 years!

I hope your team wins!

I read an article that said SBC will pass 18 million customers by 2007 with fiber to the node(FTTN). It's kinda funny how all three major RBOC's submitted the RFP to vendors and all 3 have chosen a different FTTx. The article stated that SBC recently spent alot of money upgrading all their RT's to fiber so I'm sure it's a money issue with them. VZ feels if they get they get the fiber to the home now,their infrastructure is future proof(fiber bandwith is currently limited by the electronics at each end). Future upgrades for them will be relatively inexpensive,just change eq. at the CO and customer prem. as opposed to expanding the outside plant. BTW, I thought SBC already owned Cingular and they "merged" with AT&T?

You're correct splicer2, my mistake:

»biz.yahoo.com/ap/041022/ ··· e_7.html

SBC, BellSouth and Verizon are all heavily in debt and pouring money as it is into upgrading their wireless operations with advanced technologies that would compete at least partly with the services to be delivered over fiber.

Then again, those very same concerns could be masking longer-term plans at SBC and BellSouth to install fiber all the way to the home once their wireless joint venture, Cingular Wireless, completes a $41 billion purchase of AT&T Wireless Services Inc.

"SBC and BellSouth can't give the notion to shareholders that they need to spend billions on fiber because they are in the process of raising billions to close Cingular's acquisition of AT&T Wireless," said Lin.
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Verizon stood by its projection to reach about 1 million homes at a cost of $800 million and another 2 million homes in 2005, though anecdotal evidence suggests it, too, has picked up the pace.

"Every discussion we've had with people close to (Verizon's) project indicate they are moving, and moving faster than the publicly announced plans," said Albert Lin, industry analyst for American Technology Research. "Contractors working on that program are making installations of equipment that would not make sense to install unless you were planning to introduce service."

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Isn't it ironic that an ILEC like VZ may actually be deploying FTTP faster than they are proclaiming publicly? I think that shows just how much VZ wants to take an offensive stance toward the competition, with a certain element of surprise.

1 million homes passed by the end of this year?
I don't think so. Everything I've seen here and elsewhere seems to be indicating that they've likely already surpassed that by a big margin, probably more like double that figure already. They've publicly announced 9 states; however, just based on all the sightings on these forums it's obvious that deployments are happening in at least 12 states currently. The companies directive to lash the new fiber to the already existing copper lines has been reported to have sped up the deployments by a factor of 4. And they've already started upping capex for the project, which is no surprise since early take rates according to FTTPEngineer are very very encouraging (~50% in some turned up areas). I read that in the 10 weeks after having gone live in Keller, VZ has been able to double their broadband subscribership there.

The CEO himself said that in the next two years they hope to reach a critical mass of connected lines whereby the economics start to pay off. Reading between the lines that means they will be going all out in a veritable Blitz Krieg fashion to get this stuff rolled out.

What's your impression from within the trenches splicer2 or FTTPEngineer?
Do you think VZ is passing more than they say they are?

If they really did it within 500ft it'd have to be some kind of DSL system. What would make more sense to me would be to put pedestals within 300ft of houses and run Cat5e because although the copper would probably be more expensive the CPE and pedestal equipment would most likely be a lot cheaper than a mini-DSLAM every few poles.

Hmmm... I can only speak for the West coast (Splicer 2 is on the East coast). It's difficult to tell exactly how many homes are being "passed" due to (2) reasons;

1) VZ determines "homes passed" by those reported as "ready for construction" by their engineering vendors. In short, these may have been engineered for 2004/2005 construction, but have not yet begun "actual construction". Also, if "Feeder Design" has not yet been submitted to provide service to the FDHs (Feeder design does not account for "homes passed"), then it really doesn't matter how many FDHs are built, Distribution cable placed, etc. You can't service the subcriber if it's not tied to the C.O.

2) About 2 months ago, a "number game" began between VZ and SOME of their current engineering contracting companies.
In the early stages of FTTP beginning 2004, VZ contracted out engineering on an hourly basis. However, recently VZ has bidded out additional exchange areas on a "unit only basis". As a result, the PRIMARY ENGINEERING CONTRACTOR ON THE WEST COAST (I won't state the "company name", although I won't work with them) began "fabricating numbers of homes passed" to off-set their loss in profit due to "unit billing".

I'm sure there will be a major law suit filed sometime next quarter by VZ against "company not named" when the bean-counters realize they've been had.

You are correct on the "additional states proposed for FTTP" by VZ. Oregon began almost two months ago, although not "publicly announced".

I'm also watching for SBC's FTTN/FTTP proposals to begin deploying in January, 2005. I'm curious to see if FTTN will be required by the FCC to allocate a percentage of facilities to CLECs. At the current time, SBC only plans FTTP for "greenfield applications".

JCB Technologies, LLP.

I think this first year the numbers will be around their initial estimates, no matter how they have to count it. I don't think their deploying more then they're saying. Next year however could be a different story. VZ vice pres has said publicly their goal for next year is 2million homes passed but the number could go as high as 4million. I think that was their way of saying you just don't know! That's just my take though.As FTTPengineer said, I also think some areas are trying to get an early start on next year to get ahead of the game so to speak. Also,let's not forget this is still a new technology for the baby bells and as different regions start to deploy those workers will need to learn the processes as well. This FTTP will take awhile to deploy to most people, but VZ is being very aggressive with this which is a good thing for the entire country I believe. Hopefully it will motivate the deployment of fiber to everyone and change the internet.(for the better!!)

2-4 million is not alot... Out of the 300 million people in the US.. At this rate everyone will have fiber in.... NEVER.

VZ currently has around 44million customers. Hence their prediction of about 10yrs to overbuild their entire footprint. Of course major market areas will see the service much sooner then 10yrs but those folks that are last to recieve everything else will be out at that 10 yr mark. VZ considers customers as addresses,some customers may have several lines but still one serving address. this is the homes passed they are refering to.I believe their actual access lines are around 120million.