June 25, 2007 -- The FTTH Council announced that it will host the 2007 FTTH Conference & Expo from September 30 to October 4 at the Walt Disney World Swan and Dolphin Resort in Orlando, Florida. According to the Council, the accelerating growth of high-bandwidth fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) services, and the drive for enhancements in video content and new online applications, will be at the top of the event's agenda.
According to a press release, under the banner "The Content Revolution - Filling the Pipe," the event is expected to draw more than 2,500 executives from traditional telecommunications service providers, utilities, and municipalities, as well as key decision-makers from other segments of the broadband industry, including equipment manufacturing, computing, networking, system integration, engineering and content provision.
Conference highlights will include executive panel discussions and presentations of case studies and best practices, as well as an expo hall offering the latest solutions in fiber-to-the-home services, technology and content. Also featured will be special panels on content acquisition, regulatory issues, municipal deployments of FTTH systems and FTTH financing, marketing and economics.
According to the FTTH Council, the 2007 FTTH Conference & Expo comes at a time when the number of U.S. homes receiving video, internet and voice services over direct fiber-optic connections has doubled over each of the past two years. The Council estimates that, as of March 2007, 1.34 million homes were connected to the Iternet via end-to-end fiber, with FTTH passing a total of 7.9 million homes.
"Next-generation broadband is here and now, with more than a million American households already connected directly into high-speed fiber-driven networks and thousands more being wired up every day," says Joe Savage, president of the FTTH Council, which produces the annual event. "The extension of the 'big pipe' into homes means new and exciting opportunities for providing content, and this conference will be where all segments of the industry come together to discuss how to fill it with products that consumers want and need."
"This is a thrilling time for the fiber-to-the-home industry, as the number of FTTH subscribers has doubled over each of the past two years," adds Kathy Harriman, chairman of the FTTH Council's board of directors and senior vice president for EPB Telecommunications in Chattanooga, Tennessee. "Now that it has a great deal of traction in the market, fiber-to-the-home has become the point of convergence for all kinds of futuristic services and applications. If you want to get a first-hand look at where broadband is taking us, our 2007 Conference & Expo is the place to be."
Confirmed speakers for the 2007 FTTH Conference & Expo include Bret Swanson, senior fellow at Seattle's Discovery Institute and contributing editor to the Gilder Technology Report, who will deliver the opening keynote address. Swanson recently coined the term "exaflood" to describe the ongoing, consumer-driven bandwidth deluge that threatens to swamp networks.
Attendees will be able to choose from 33 track sessions and seven panel discussions covering a broad range of FTTH topics, including "filling the pipe," government and regulatory updates, capital financing, "Fiber 101" and more. On the final day of the conference there will be a half-day workshop on municipal deployments of fiber-to-the-home systems, as well as workshops on home networking technologies and outside plant passive optical networking.
The foundation sponsor for the 2007 FTTH Conference & Expo is Corning. Online registration is now open and may be accessed at www.ftthconference.com.
