There's no denying that the fiber-to-the-premises buzz in growing. Telcos are responding to multicable system operaters offering bundled services and municipalities are installing fiber to make their cities more competitive. It’s tempting to focus on what equipment they are using, and who’s going to get the revenue, but we think this misses the larger issue lurking below the surface: who’s going to make all this stuff work.

While most of the telecom industry’s attention is focused on big FTTP equipment contracts, behind the scenes the real action is taking place.  The ultimate success of this initiative rests squarely on less glamorous details regarding how these systems will be designed, integrated and deployed. Indeed, fiber access deployments are not the same as copper and require a decidedly different procurement and installation approach from the central office all the way to the subscriber’s premises. Even the most vociferous of the RBOC bunch, Verizon, says it’s going to take at least two years to start ramping up for mass FTTP deployments.

By far, the biggest obstacles to FTTP success are the many challenges of integrating a fully converged network and the complex issues and economics of physical fiber plant construction.  Speaking at the Fiber to the Home Conference in New Orleans, Verizon’s Joe Finn said that initial deployments would focus on voice and data, because video is complicated. He’s right. These FTTP efforts are not as simple as replicating the construction of the legacy local loop. They’re more complex.

New network builds can also be very intrusive to local communities. If deployment is not managed skillfully, it can be very costly and a source of negative publicity.  There is a specific set of skills required to professionally manage the FTTP network deployment lifecycle, from business and technical planning, to design and engineering, as well as construction and integration and maintenance and operation.

The first time around, the telcos constructed local networks using internal resources. However, because of cutbacks and rising labor costs, look for these activities to be outsourced. For most telcos, the decision on how to outsource and to whom could well be the most important factor in the success of their FTTP efforts.