AT&T on Bandwidth

11:00 AM -- How much bandwidth will we need in the next five years?

Here's what AT&T Inc. (NYSE: T)'s EVP of network planning and engineering, Chris Rice, said in response to that question when Light Reading interviewed him last month:

I think over the next three years the 25 megabits per second that we have going out with project Lightspeed is more than adequate… I think that as you get beyond those three years you’ll probably see it start to creep up above the twenty five megabit level – we're seeing, on project Lightspeed, you know 30 to 40 megabits [per second] at 3,000 feet [away from the central office], so we’re not too concerned about that.

At 5,000 feet we’re getting 20 to 25 [Mbit/s] with VDSL2 and with bonding capability we’ll be able to get those who are at 20 to 25 to, you know, 30 meg to 40 meg and, coupled with compression on video, we think will be plenty of bandwidth. But it’s a hard guess to know what it’ll be outside of 2008 or 2009, but I think 20 to 25 is more than adequate.

I don’t think you’re going to need a 100 meg [connection], nor do I think that you’re going to need 50 meg any time soon. But applications change. Who would have thought that we’d have needed 20 to 25 megabits three years ago?

— Phil Harvey, News Editor, Light Reading