SBC this morning announced Project Pronto, a $6 billion overhaul of its network that gambles on digital subscriber line technology to provide broadband services.
Scheduled to be completed by the end of 2002, Project Pronto calls for:
- Extending fiber networks closer to customers.
- Installing DSL remote terminals so the technology can reach more than 80% of customers.
-Converting business T-1 circuits from copper lines to fiber, enabling fast turn-ups of new broadband services.
- Installing ATM switches in SBC's trunking backbone, replacing circuit switches.
SBC promises the network will be user controlled, giving customers the ability to turn services on and off.
The minimum guaranteed download speed for DSL will jump from 384K bit/sec to 1.5M bit/sec, but the price will remain the same at $39 per month. The maximum speed will jump from 1.5M bit/sec to 6M bit/sec for $129 per month.
After Project Pronto is completed, all customers who can get DSL will be guaranteed the 1.5M bit/sec downloads. Only 60% will be close enough to SBC's DSL mulitplexers to get 6M bit/sec.
SBC says it expects to take in $3.5 billion more per year from its DSL services after Project Pronto.
SBC would not say whose equipment will be used in the upgrade, but says Lucent and Nortel ATM gear will be in trails soon to act as trunking switches to anchor traditional local voice switches.
Of the $6 billion, 75% will be spent on local loop improvements and the rest on backbone upgrades.
SBC says it expects to capture 40% of the broadband access business in its service area, with the reset being split by cable providers and business-oriented competitive local exchange carriers.
SBC says it may have to buy up two more companies, one to give it a wireless presence and another to help its strategy of expanding into local markets outside its home territory.
SBC has bought up Pacific Telesis, Nevada Bell, Southern New England Telephone Company and Ameritech since the Telecommunications Reform Act of 1996 was passed.
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