2009 Fiber To The Home Conference & Expo Wraps Up After Four Days Of Planning Next-Generation Networks
Houston, TX - The year's biggest fiber to the home (FTTH) industry event concluded today with a focus on quickening the pace of North America's march toward next-generation, high-speed, all-fiber networks. More than 1,700 leaders and professionals from all corners of the telecommunications industry converged on the Hilton-Americas Houston and the George R. Brown Convention Center for the 2009 FTTH Conference & Expo, where they saw the latest in all-fiber technology and heard about the business experiences of FTTH providers from across the continent and around the world.
Attendance numbers matched those of previous years, showing that the weakened global economy has not sidetracked the growing interest in upgrading copper-based networks to 100 percent fiber access. In more than 50 track sessions, panel discussions and workshops that took place during the four-day event, attendees learned about how all-fiber networks are changing the telecommunications landscape by delivering faster Internet connections and higher quality video services, and enabling service providers to "future-proof" their networks in light of the ever-expanding bandwidth requirements of their customers.
"The strong attendance and enormous interest in this conference shows that fiber to the home is moving to center stage of the telecommunications industry," said Joe Savage, President of the FTTH Council, which organizes the event. "America's telecom providers are coming around to the conclusion that when it comes to their future success, there is no way but fiber all the way."
During the week's activities, the FTTH Council announced that all-fiber networks now reach 5.33 million homes in North America, with 1.5 million households connected in each of the last two years. Fiber to the home networks now pass 15 percent of the homes on the continent.
Conference keynote speaker Richard Lynch, CTO of Verizon, rallied the attendees with a look back on the "naysayers" who initially dismissed his Verizon's bold investment in an FTTH strategy, and who he says now call the company asking for FiOS installation in their homes. The Deputy Administrator of the Rural Utilities Service in the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Jessica Zufolo, provided an update on the broadband stimulus programs under the recovery legislation, while the conference also included numerous presentations and discussions on the progress of stimulus applications by FTTH companies.
Accompanying the conference was North America's largest trade show devoted to FTTH equipment, products and services. In addition to more than 130 exhibitors from the industry, the Expo Hall included demonstrations of fiber-powered HD and HD-3D television service, as well as a demonstration of a telemedicine application sponsored by MedConcierge and St. Joseph Medical Center in Houston. In addition, Phillip Robinson, CEO of St. Joseph, addressed the conference and spoke about the latest developments in its tele-health services to local communities and corporations.
For the first time in its eight year history, the conference included presentations in Spanish and Portuguese covering issues specific to Latin America, and coinciding with the launch of the FTTH Council's new Latin America chapter.
This year's corporate sponsors included a lineup of industry leaders representing a range of FTTH products and services. Platinum sponsors included Alcatel-Lucent, Corning Cable Systems, Hitachi Telecommunications of North America, KGP Logistics, Motorola and Phonoscope. ADC, ADTRAN, Calix, Enablence, OnTrac, OFS and Quanta were all gold level sponsors.
The FTTH Council announced that next year's Conference & Expo will take place September 12-16, 2010 at the Venetian Resort Hotel Casino in Las Vegas, NV, and that nearly half of the floor space for that event has already been sold.
SOURCE: The Fiber-to-the-Home Council