SBC Communications, finally, is getting its FTTP groove on. The company has started to formalize and pick vendors for its mega-billion dollar rollout. The big winner of this bonanza is Alcatel, which has built a sizeable portfolio of FTTP/C products.

To drive fiber deeper into the SBC network, Alcatel will provide SBC with its remote 7330 IP DSLAM solution, which is capable of supporting wire speed triple play services and multiple variations of DSL for SBC’s Fiber to the Neighborhood architecture. In addition, Alcatel provides its 7340 Fiber to the Premise (FTTP) solutions. Alcatel is the world’s leading supplier of broadband access solutions, with more than 50 million lines of DSL shipped. SBC has selected Alcatel’s 7750 Service Router and 7450 Ethernet Services Switch

This is a serious blow to Tellabs-AFC combine, which has been working with Verizon. Alcatel gets around $1.7 billion of the total spend. If Alcatel is providing routers, looks like Juniper and Cisco also missed out on the goodies. My sources are telling me there are some other winners. From what I have heard, 2Wire is going to be the primary vendor for residential Gateways & set-top-boxes. Wow! But wait, the news isn’t over as yet. Looks like BellSouth is about to announce its vendors, and Alcatel and 2Wire are the likely winners there as well. Stay tuned!