Though Tellabs has been described by analysts as a front-runner in the competition to supply major U.S. carriers with Gigabit passive optical networking (GPON) equipment, the vendor’s timetable for that gear appears out of synch with carrier requirements.

As GPON is much faster and not much more expensive than the technology Verizon Communications is currently deploying, the carrier wants to deploy it “as soon as possible,” Verizon Communications’ technology director Vincent O’Byrne said at the Optical Fiber Communications/National Fiber Optics Engineers conference this week.

To that end, the GPON request for proposals (RFP) issued jointly by AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth last November requires vendors’ GPON gear to be “generally available” by April 3, 2006.

Tellabs’ GPON gear will be generally available in the second half of this year, a company spokesperson said this week, which would appear to put the vendor at least two months behind Verizon’s schedule. (Last year, Tellabs had targeted mid-2006 for general availability.)

When asked about the discrepancy, the spokesperson said, “Tellabs doesn't discuss specifics of pending customer RFPs, as that's a confidential matter between Tellabs and [its] customer. Tellabs has responded to the RFP and feels confident about [its] response.”

Tellabs is Verizon’s incumbent PON supplier, and Motorola is a secondary supplier. In recent months, some analysts have described both vendors as front-runners to win a coveted Bell GPON contract, along with Alcatel (AT&T’s incumbent fiber access supplier) and Hitachi Telecom USA (a non-incumbent whose Asian deployments have made it the world’s leading supplier of PON gear).

Hitachi Telecom’s GPON gear will become generally available later this month, the company said this week. Alcatel began shipping its GPON gear “in limited quantities” in this year’s first quarter, a company spokesperson said. Motorola did not immediately respond to a query from Telephony.

Tellabs has yet to formally unveil its GPON gear, a fact that caused some industry observers to begin speculating as early as last year whether the vendor would be able to meet the deadlines of the RFP.

Verizon will not comment on the vendor selection process.