Member Companies Meeting the Broadband Challenge
Whippany, NJ – December 5, 2007 –The National Exchange Carrier Association (NECA) today released the second edition of a report entitled Trends 2007: Building Tomorrow’s Network. The report shows how NECA member companies in rural America are evolving their networks to support high speed Internet transmission and delivery of video content in order to meet the needs of their customers.
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There are now 1,054 members of NECA’s traffic sensitive pool providing over one million DSL lines. This is a substantial increase from the 814 companies that were providing DSL in 2003 and an even more substantial increase from 1999 when only 151 members had a total of 20,000 DSL lines.
The progress being made by rural telecommunications companies goes far beyond the ability to provide DSL to their customers. NECA member companies are increasing their use of fiber so they can offer more bandwidth and extend the reach of their networks. They are migrating to packet switching using network routers and softswitches and deploying their networks using packet transmission based on ATM (Asynchronous Transfer Mode), IP and Ethernet technology.
Six hundred eighty-one member companies report they are using ATM technology, 477 Ethernet technology, 318 broadband wireless technology, 254 cable modem service to support Internet and video services and 233 companies have Fiber in the Loop. Trends also reports that more than 400 of our traffic sensitive pool members are providing video services to their customers, with another 132 planning to deploy IPTV in 2008 or beyond.
More than 60 pool members’ affiliates participated in the fall 2006 and spring 2007 FCC spectrum auctions to increase their wireless capabilities. These companies were awarded more than 80 licenses to serve customers located in their rural geographic service areas. This adds to the more than 400 member companies whose affiliates offer services through previously acquired spectrum.
“Trends” is published annually and will track the progress of network technology deployment and how those technologies are converging. It is available at: http://www.neca.org/
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