FTTHblog » Verizon GPON Announcement

Posted on 08.04.06

Here’s the Verizon press release detailing its selection of Alcatel, Motorola, and Tellabs GPON equipment for its Fios rollout. Since Alcatel equipment will be deployed first and Alcatel was not previously incumbent with Verizon for FTTH, it looks like a big win for Alcatel. A contrarian opinion is offered by Andrew Schmitt:

I strongly suspect that until the economics work out such that the per user cost of GPON in the real world (i.e. what do I need to pay to deploy today, not those fancy GPON white papers vendors like to trot out) is cheaper than BPON we will see no GPON deployment whatsoever, period, end of story….Tellabs has been criticized for being late to the GPON game. It would appear to me that they understand the lack of urgency in the matter, and stand to benefit as BPON continues to ship.

Filed under: Business
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Being called a contrarian is the highest praise. Thank you.

Comment by Andrew Schmitt — August 4, 2006 @ 8:07 am
Sorry to be contrarion to the contrarion, but I would not bet against GPON deployment in 2006.

According to industry rumors that I would not confirm even if I could, Verizon was offered pricing for GPON that is lower than their current BPON pricing. Per-user pricing for GPON will not be the barrier for Verizon deployment.

Verizon upper management is very concerned about deploying a significant amount of “stranded” BPON. Therefore, there is a very strong push to deploy GPON as quickly as possible. Any delays will most likely be due to the difficulties of deploying a relatively new vendor and an immature product into the behemoth that is Verizon Operations.

Comment by Scott Wilkinson — August 8, 2006 @ 4:25 am
I can believe that. The price of GPON could be lower than BPON. But the COST certainly cannot. Is Alcatel buying the business in the hope of selling TiMetra equipment and other assorted goods?

Comment by Andrew Schmitt — August 8, 2006 @ 11:26 am

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