“BellSouth reportedly plans to turn up 50Mbps broadband access service next year, based on VDSL2 technology.”

BellSouth 50Mbps Broadband Access Service

According to Investor's Business Daily, BellSouth plans to offer the service to 10% of the households it serves, or about 1.35 million users, in the second half of 2007. The service will be offered where BellSouth has already laid fiber to within 250 feet of homes as part of its fiber-to-the-curb (FTTC) strategy. New! Watch this Network World Webcast on Wide Area Network.

Most of the upgrade will be completed in 2008, IBD reports, citing information provided by the carrier to state regulators and an interview with BellSouth CTO Bill Smith. Smith is also quoted in the article saying the service could reach 80Mbps.

Currently, the highest speed DSL service BellSouth offers to homes and businesses is 6Mbps.

Aside from the 1.35 million homes to receive the 50Mbps, most other residences in BellSouth's region are targeted for 20M to 25Mbps ADSL2+ service.

The service is designed to thwart inroads by cable companies, which offer high-end speeds between 6Mbps and 16Mbps.

Among other Bells, Verizon offers broadband speeds of 5M, 15M and 30Mbps as part of its FiOS service, which runs fiber right up to the home. Verizon also offers 50Mbps FiOS in a few areas.

The big question is, what happens to BellSouth's plans once the carrier is acquired by AT&T? AT&T has a different fiber/DSL strategy than BellSouth in which it runs fiber within 3,000 feet of the customer premises - a plan AT&T refers to as fiber-to-the-node. AT&T also plans to run fiber directly to the premises in certain situations.

Some analysts believe that by disclosing its VDSL2 plans, BellSouth seems confident that its plans will remain intact after the merger with AT&T.

"Many have questioned the future of FTTC as AT&T plans to acquire BellSouth, and AT&T generally uses a different broadband architecture," states Lehman Brothers Analyst Marcus Kupferschmidt in a bulletin on the IBD article. "We find it strange that BellSouth would make these comments and inform state regulators of the upgrade plans if the intentions were not real."

Kupferschmidt expects the VDSL2 upgrade business to go to Tellabs, BellSouth's FTTC supplier. Tellabs stock was up almost 5% Wednesday.

UBS Warburg Analyst John Hodulik expects the AT&T/BellSouth merger to close as early as October.

Check DSL Cable Satellite Pricing Now >