AT&T: Pair Bonded DSL 'Late 2008' - 10Mbps will have to do for now...

While AT&T this week unveiled 10Mbps U-Verse VDSL, that's likely not going to be enough to do battle with cable DOCSIS 3.0 networks over the next few years. For years AT&T has been telling us that they'll be using pair bonding to offer faster speeds. Originally the company said they'd hoped to deploy the technology before the end of 2007. Telephony Online's Ed Gubbins e-mails us to note that AT&T is now saying late 2008 for the faster speeds.

“Late 2008” is the most recent language the company has adopted, spoken by CEO Randall Stephenson during the company’s quarterly earnings call today. Promising the introduction of a “whole-home” digital video recorder service this year as well as a second stream of high-definition television (HDTV), Stephenson added, “A third enhancement that will be important to us going forward–because it will enable additional HD streams where they’re required–will be pair-bonding, which we expect late in 2008."

Providing dual HD streams is an important competitive milestone because until it's implemented, U-Verse TV simply isn't on par with many cable & satellite HD offerings. AT&T embraced FTTN & VDSL over FTTH solutions like FiOS, largely because of the cost savings. AT&T will be spending less than a third of what Verizon is spending to deploy FiOS, a move that pleases skittish and impatient investors.

AT&T says they should be able to double the bandwidth they're currently delivering (30-60Mbps or more depending on CO distance) to many homes with pair bonding. Telephony Online has a second report that claims pair bonding in some instances could only boost bandwidth speeds by 25% to 30%. They also note that in many neighborhoods, there won't be enough copper to offer two pair to every home. That might be good news for BellSouth users, who so far have felt a little neglected:

It's unknown what fraction of homes in AT&T's FTTN footprint have the requisite second pair. In particular, the Pacific Bell and Southwestern Bell regions are “very tight on extra pairs,” posing a “potential problem,” said Teresa Mastrangelo, broadbandtrends.com principal analyst. Instead, AT&T might do more VDSL2 bonding in BellSouth territory, where copper is more abundant. BellSouth, which started deploying three pairs to every newly built home in the 1990s, already has deployed bonded G.shdsl for mid-band Ethernet services and has shown an interest in bonded VDSL2, Mastrangelo said.

To offer bonded VDSL, AT&T needs to assign two DSLAM ports to each customer, and deploy a special residential gateway outside the house that can terminate two pairs. Qwest is also testing VDSL pair bonding, and hopes to offer 35-38Mbps, maybe. Our guess is that Verizon will only look smarter and smarter as other companies, who wouldn't or couldn't shell out the cash, continue to struggle with the technical limitations of milking copper.