AT&T is pledging to use pair-bonding on VDSL2 lines sometime in late 2008 to improve the overall bandwidth available via its fiber-to-the-node network. It's a nice thought, but the carrier originally said more than a year ago that it would begin implementing pair-bonding before the end of 2007. It later said use of pair-bonding would begin in 2008, but on yesterday's fourth-quarter earnings call, AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson said more specifically that late 2008 is the targeted time frame.
There is some speculation that pair-bonding technology may not be as easy to implement in the reality of a multi-vendor, multi-service network with varying access distances as it seems to be in theory. Could lack of pair-bonding slow AT&T's progress? The company also said yesterday that it has 231,000 U-verse subscribers, representing 83% growth, so it hasn't hurt so far.
For more:
- see this story at just-redesigned Telephony
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- U-Verse helped fuel AT&T's stellar fourth-quarter earnings report