FTTH Conference Draws Record Crowd

The Fiber-to-the-Home(FTTH) Conference & Expo attracted approximately 1,900 attendees and nearly150 exhibitors Oct. 3-6 at the Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas. These numbers are upsubstantially from the first FTTH Conference held in 2001, which attractedapproximately 165 attendees.

Many trenchless companies involved in fiber opticinstallations were on hand, including Ditch Witch, Vermeer, Astec, TTTechnologies, Michels, Henkels & McCoy and Mastec.

The fourth annual conference, sponsored by theFiber to the Home Council, featured Sen. Conrad Burns (R-Mont.), a leadingproponent of rural broadband deployment, as the keynote speaker. The FTTHConference is the premier event for advancing residential broadband access inNorth America. Conference speakers are industry luminaries, governmentdecision-makers and optical fiber network implementers.

Sen. Burns, currently in his third term in theSenate, is known for his aggressive agenda in telecommunications policy,including co-sponsorship of the U.S. Department of Agriculture broadband loanprogram, broadband tax incentives, anti-spamming legislation, and E911requirements. Burns is a senior member of the Senate Committee on Commerce,Science and Transportation, and serves Chairman of the Senate InteriorAppropriations subcommittee.

During his congressional career, Burns has focusedheavily on the communications sector and has been praised as “one of the fathersof the modern Internet.”