Even as his company begins deployment of its second generation of fiber-to-the-premises technology in Gigabit passive optical networks (GPON), Verizon CTO Mark Wegleitner is looking ahead to what’s next, including wave division multiplexed PONs, Ultra Wideband networking in the home and next-generation 3D television.

The key for Verizon, Wegleitner told a media dinner Monday night, is that all of this will be deliverable over the fiber network the company is deploying today.

“We aren’t going to change what we put in the ground or hang onto poles,” he said. Even when the company delivers a wavelength to each home on the network, Wegleitner said, “I’m still comfortable with the stuff in the ground today.”

WDM PON, standards for which should be developed by 2010, would use a wavelength to every home. That acknowledges the continual demand for bandwidth, including greater emphasis on upstream bandwidth for user-generated content, Wegleitner said, as well as more sophisticated videoconferencing capabilities all the way to up telepresence, something now coming into the business community.

The Verizon CTO wouldn’t commit to when, or even whether, his company will move from its current hybrid approach to deliver video, using traditional cable TV for the broadcast channels and IPTV for video on demand and interactive applications.