The Lightwave Blog

Posted by Stephen Hardy

When I put together our article on Qwest's new FTTN roll out, we took up their PR firm's offer to field some questions I had regarding how they plan to provide the services and where. I didn't receive answers until after I had posted the story and included it in our e-newsletter that day. But thinking that late is indeed better than never, here they are.

The most interesting tidbit, given the recent troubles that the UTOPIA and iProvo FTTH initiatives are having, is that Provo and Salt Lake City are two of the markets in which Qwest's Connect Quantum and Connect Titanium will appear first. (No, Salt Lake City isn't part of the UTOPIA project -- but several of the munis involved in the project surround the city.) You don't need to be Sun Tzu to know that there's nothing like attacking a adversary at a moment of extreme weakness.

Here's a list of the 23 markets where Qwest will roll out the FTTH-enabled services first:

• Arizona: Phoenix, Tucson
  
• Colorado: Denver, Colorado Springs, Ft. Collins
  
• Idaho: Boise
  
• Iowa: Des Moines, Iowa City, Cedar Rapids
  
• Minnesota: Minneapolis/St. Paul
  
• Nebraska: Omaha
  
• New Mexico: Albuquerque, Santa Fe, Las Cruces
  
• Oregon: Portland, Salem, Bend, Eugene
  
• Utah: Salt Lake City, Provo, St. George
  
• Washington: Seattle, Vancouver
  

As mentioned in the article, Connect Quantum will offer download speeds of up to 20 Mbits/sec and Connect Titanium up to 12 Mbits/sec. Qwest now tells me that the upload speed for both is 896 kbits/sec. "We are continually looking at new technology that will expand both download and upload connection speeds, including options such as pair bonding and VDSL2," according to the Qwest source who provided the information. (His/her identity was not revealed.)

In response to a question about future video services over the FTTN network, the Qwest source cited the carrier's existing relationship with DirecTV. The source added that DirecTV has announced plans to add video on demand later this year, "so that will be an exciting video product for our customers and it's a complement to these faster speeds."

Finally, when it comes to technology suppliers, the source said, "We working with a variety of vendor partners, including Motorola, for our fiber-to-the-neighborhood roll out."

Labels: FTTN, iProvo, Qwest, UTOPIA