AT&T has announced its chosen suppliers of gigabit passive optical networking access equipment: Alcatel-Lucent and Ericsson.

Alcatel-Lucent was the first supplier of GPON gear to Verizon, which began deploying the gear commercially this spring and ultimately will use a trio of suppliers for GPON, including Motorola and Tellabs, its two existing suppliers of lower-speed BPON gear.

Ericsson acquired GPON vendor Entrisphere earlier this year, sparking speculation that the Swedish equipment giant gave the start-up vendor the “big brother” it needed to land a Bell carrier customer.

Though AT&T issued a GPON request for proposal jointly with Verizon in late 2005, its vendor selection announcement came nearly a year later than Verizon’s. Unlike Verizon, AT&T’s deployment plans for GPON are limited to greenfield applications.

AT&T expects to begin GPON deployment some time next year.