ANAHEIM--Verizon Communications is expected today to name the two places where it will begin commercial deployment of gigabit-speed passive optical networking (GPON) equipment.

Early in the second quarter, Verizon will deploy GPON in Lewisville, Texas--about half an hour’s drive from both Dallas and Keller, where Verizon began its commercial PON rollout in 2004.

Over the summer, Verizon will bring GPON to Kirklyn, Pa., naming additional markets after the first two deployments are complete.

Verizon began deploying GPON in small volumes for field trials late last year. Analysts and equipment vendors have predicted the carrier would deploy more of its current PON technology than GPON this year. Its original PON gear, which now passes more than 6 million homes, delivers 622 Mb/s of downstream bandwidth, while GPON delivers 2.4 Gb/s.

Verizon has already deployed the lower-speed PON in Lewisville.

The GPON deployment is Verizon’s first commercial deployment of PON gear from Alcatel-Lucent, which beat the carrier’s incumbent PON suppliers, Tellabs and Motorola, to GPON deployment. Tellabs and Motorola will follow Alcatel-Lucent in supplying Verizon with GPON gear as well.