Is FTTH falling out of fashion?

Stuart Corner
Wednesday, 06 December 2006 11:09

Business IT - Networking

A senior AT&T executive says the company does not expect to need to rollout fibre to the home to deliver video services: his comments follow similar ones made last month by a senior BT executive.

According to Reuters report, AT&T has "shrugged off concerns that it would need to build a more expensive, all-fibre network to handle an expected surge in high-speed Internet and video traffic."

AT&T is currently upgrading its networks to deliver an Internet-based video service called U-Verse to compete with cable companies and Reuters quotes its CFO, Richard Lindner, telling a Credit Suisse conference: "Our view at this point is that we're not going to have go 'fibre to the home'. We're pleased with the bandwidth that we're seeing over copper...On average, at this point, we're producing about 25Mbps. But in many many locations, we're producing substantially more than that."

BT, which just two days ago launched its IPTV service BT Vision, seems to be thinking along the same lines. Paul Reynolds, CEO of BT Wholesale, was reported addressing the DigiWorld 2006 Summit in Montpellier in November saying: "We'll be launching ADSL2+ next year which gives speeds of up to 24Mbps and will comfortably support customers' immediate needs, including IPTV. I really don't see a business case for widespread FTTH. It is not immediately apparent where the incremental revenue would come from that investment."

Also, observers point out that BT is heavily focussed on other priorities. Like Telstra it is committed to a full-scale next-generation network transformation (its 21CN project) the first stage of which has just gone live, in Cardiff, but which is not due to be completed until 2011. By this time, 99 percent of UK households should be able to get ADSL2+ (however not all are likely to get its full 24Mbps bandwidth).