Tellabs today announced that it has been selected by BellSouth as the exclusive supplier for BellSouth’s fiber-to-the-curb (FTTC) deployment.

The contract, which covers the Tellabs FiberDirect solution, maintains its exclusivity through the end of 2006.

BellSouth previously announced in March that it would use Alcatel’s IP DSLAM for some portions of the access network.

Under terms of the deal with Tellabs, BellSouth will run fiber out of the vendor’s AccessMax, which serves as an optical line terminal and gateway in the central office. From there, fiber is brought to an AccessMax Optical Network Terminal. In BellSouth’s network, that ONT will sit no more than 500 feet from the home, according to Peter Hill, vice president of technology planning and deployment at the carrier.

“The maximum distance we’ll go is 500 feet, but I’d say on average it will be closer to 200 feet,” he said.

From there, the company plans to use a variety of technologies, including the recently approved VDSL2 standard. However, that won’t happen until product is ready, which won’t be until at least 2006.

VDSL2 is perfect for FTTC,” Hill said. “We’ll proceed to it as fast as we can.”

Though not as vocal about its plans as other RBOCs, BellSouth has been among the most aggressive with fiber deployment, passing about 1.1 million homes with FTTC.