One of the real question marks surrounding the Globalcomm 2006 trade show in Chicago this month was the participation of service providers, now that USTelecom, the major service provider organization, is running a separate trade show in March.

There was little doubt that service provider attendance at Globalcomm 2006 was down, as major players such as Verizon, BellSouth and large independent telcos were no-shows. But those service providers on hand used the occasion to highlight their new initiatives and a more upbeat message of growth.

Making the biggest splash were AT&T and Global Crossing, the former by dominating speaker platforms and the latter with a flood of news, topped off by the announcement it had quadrupled its IP backbone capacity in preparation for deployment of OC-768 gear.

AT&T officials touted the company's Project Lightspeed deployment and its IPTV rollout and repeatedly denied reports that there are any concerns that the fiber-to-the-node (FTTN) buildout will lack the bandwidth necessary to support high-definition TV.

“Today, at 2500 feet, I'm getting a solid 30 [Mb/s],” said Chris Rice, executive vice president of AT&T, whose company did a controlled launch of Project Lightspeed in San Antonio, which began last December. “We figure with 20 Mb/s, we can deliver one HD channel and two SD channels. With the second rendition, in 2007, we will go to two HD channels and two SD channels. And that will grow as compression improves.”

In addition, Rice said in a Globalcomm interview, AT&T has several strategies for increasing that bandwidth as needed, including pair bonding for longer loops and dividing distribution areas, where needed, to shorten the copper loops in an FTTN deployment.