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| BT names vendors for new $19bn network |
| Thursday, April 28, 2005 at 23:12 by Rich Kavanagh |
Telecommunications giant British Telecom (BT) today took a major step towards delivering its new 21st Century Network with the selection of its preferred suppliers. The 21st Century Network is the world's most radical next generation network transformation programme. It will require an investment by BT of up to $19 billion (£10bn) over the next five years and will put the UK at the cutting edge of innovation.
The 21st Century Network (21CN) is a global IP infrastructure, based upon Multi-Protocol Label Switching (MPLS), that carries voice, data and Internet services on a single network. The 21CN offers multiple services across a single network, rather than today's multitude of networks offering specific services. For BT, this will mean fewer network elements overall and require simpler network management. For BT's customers, the 21CN will deliver more choice, control and accessibility, as well as increased flexibility, reliability and security.
The announcement today of product and service suppliers is the culmination of two years of discussions and negotiations with over 300 potential technology suppliers from all corners of the world. BT described it as an extremely competitive process in what is one of the largest single procurement programmes ever undertaken in the communications industry.
A final list of eight preferred vendors has been chosen to work with BT in five strategic domains. They are:
• Fujitsu and Huawei have been chosen in the access domain which will link BT's existing access network with the new 21CN
• Alcatel, Cisco and Siemens have been selected as preferred suppliers for metro nodes which provide routing and signaling for 21CN's voice, data and video services
• Cisco and Lucent will be 21CN's preferred suppliers for core nodes providing high capacity and cost efficient connections between metro nodes
• Ericsson has been selected in the i-node domain, in essence the intelligence that controls the services
• Ciena and Huawei have been chosen in the transmission domain to supply the optical electronics that will convert the signals carried at high capacity over the cables connecting the metro and core nodes
Matt Bross, BT Group's chief technology officer said,
"The capability that BT is putting in place through this investment in 21CN is unequalled anywhere in the world. It will enable us to introduce new services at a speed that is simply impossible today."
Paul Reynolds, BT Wholesale chief executive added,
"21CN is a key infrastructure that will fuel the UK economy and provide a flexible way for consumers to use new services. The selection of the preferred suppliers is an incredibly important building block towards that vision. 21CN will also radically reduce BT's cost base, with identified savings of around one billion pounds a year."
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| Give me uncapped broadband for a tenner-a-month today or i'll bugger off to Canada. |
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| and bandwidth grows on trees does it? I love the way people hide behind really daft comments. How narrow minded can you get? |
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| Sounds good, at the minute theres only one company able to provide me with broadband and its the same in alot of places. Hopefully this will encorage competition and lower prices |
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| Human rights issues
The chinese will now be employing children to manufacture 21CN equipment ?
hello lets get real |
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| Wouldn't it be nice if we could at least get the current broadband offering. As it stands BT are not planning to make BB available where I live (too small exchange), so this is all meaningless to me. Come on Wimax, save me from Dial up! |
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| Another sad blow to the UK. Wake up guys all the technolgy design and manuf isn't here any more ! We might hav a 21CN but not much of the income for producing will come to the UK. Just look at the Telecomms jobs losses in the UK over the last 5 years...we better all start to learn chineese to read the instruction manuals...or there is always the call centre bassed help line !
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| "Human rights issues
The chinese will now be employing children to manufacture 21CN equipment ?
hello lets get real"
Who cares i mean really who cares? |
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| i thinks its great how we could see about 1Gbps fiber-optic broadband like they have in Hong-Kong that would allow me to download faster than the current 512k adsl!!!! |
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