Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE: VZ) announced today it will drastically increase its GPON rollouts in 2008.

Verizon announced its GPON intentions back in March, but its deployment so far has been on a trial basis. (See Verizon Deploys GPON.)

Now, Verizon is listing California, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Virginia, and Texas as states where it's going all-GPON for its FiOS buildouts. (See Verizon Adds More G-PON.)

"Everything will be GPON," a Verizon spokesman says -- referring to new installs in those territories. The company's BPON infrastructure will remain in place and will continue to be supported.

While GPON networks run four times faster than BPON, FiOS customers won't immediately see any change in their service as the upgrades are intended mainly for future-proofing.

Verizon offers downstream speeds of up to 50 Mbit/s in some areas and has said that it plans to one day offer 100 Mbit/s to individual homes. (See Verizon Spells Out 100 Mbit/s and Verizon Leads the Great 100-Mbit/s Bandwidth Race.) "This sure as heck makes that possible, but our product set has not changed yet," the spokesman says.

Verizon had previously named Alcatel-Lucent (NYSE: ALU), Motorola Inc. (NYSE: MOT), and Tellabs Inc. (Nasdaq: TLAB; Frankfurt: BTLA) as its GPON vendors with AlcaLu being the first to provide gear. That has not changed. "Alcatel is a step ahead of the others, that is true," the Verizon spokesman says. (See Alcatel Joins Verizon PON Party and Verizon Deploys GPON.)

— Raymond McConville, Reporter, Light Reading