So this week Adtran invited press and analysts down to Huntsville, Ala., for a debriefing on upcoming announcements and a tour, of among other things, its manufacturing facilities that build and assemble enterprise and carrier equipment here on U.S. soil, right in-house.

The company does ship high-volume manufacturing off-shore to contract manufacturing partners, but says managing first-runs and rush jobs locally — with its engineers and designers right in the next building — can actually save money when all costs are accounted for. Further, it gives the company insights into its own products that it claims competitors lack.

U.S-based manufacturing is so rare these days, we thought we would share a look. more

Adtran this week opened up the doors to its Huntsville, Ala., headquarters to press and analysts to talk about a range of topics spanning its enterprise and carrier businesses.

On the service provider side of the house, the focus was on helping carriers drive IP and Ethernet ever deeper into the network while using Adtran’s multi-access platforms to affordably serve the mix of copper and fiber and TDM and Ethernet environments that are the reality today for most carriers.

Also on the agenda: opportunities in mobile backhaul, especially moving from bundled T1s to something more flexible, affordable and Ethernet-based; thoughts on broadband stimulus, national broadband and other funding scenarios; and the potential for blurring the unified communications lines between enterprise and carrier.

Plus: a tour of its on-campus manufacturing operations — a unique resource in an industry in which most manufacturing off-shored and outsourced. more

Connected Planet is working with STL Partners to provide coverage of the first of the U.K.-based strategy consultant’s influential Telco 2.0 events to reach the U.S., to be held Dec. 9-10 in Orlando. As a lead-up to that event, STL CEO and founder Simon Torrance and his team shared with us — and we’re sharing with you — some analysis of the most recent Telco 2.0 event, held last month in London.

Up today: Insights into Consumer Services 2.0, a session that examined the ongoing Web vs. telco battle over delivering the killer communications and social apps of tomorrow. (Also in this series: Telco Data 2.0)

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