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Cardiff First For BT’s 21st Century Network (21CN)
Their glorious football team many not be first at anything much these days, but BT have announced that Cardiff and the surrounding area will lead the UK with the implementation of their 21st Century Network (21CN).
The £10bn investment will roll out the next generation of converged communications, including telephone calls, broadband and Ethernet services delivered through an Internet-based platform.
The investment will end BT’s dependence on telephony through on Ye Olde public switched telephone network (PSTN) and should – in theory – result in cheaper telephone bills for its customers.
What is this 21CN thing, do I hear you ask?
Here’s how BT describe the technology:
“BT’s 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.”
BT is expected to begin migrating around 350,000 customer lines in the area during the second half of 2006, with the 21CN programme requiring the replacement of equipment in more than 50 local exchanges along with the implementation of new IT systems to make the technology do its stuff.
Ask BT competitors what 21CN is and you’ll get quite a different answer. Their view is that it is effectively the death of meaningful competition in the UK and that once BT has it in place there will be no incentive to try and unbundle exchanges.
Three cool-sounding “metro nodes” (super telephone exchanges) are to be developed in Cardiff, Swansea and Newport, with 10 new transmission sites also being developed across the region. These will be assessed for power supply, space and logistics planning before the ‘on’ switch is pressed.
First Minister Rhodri Morgan purred, “It’s incredibly exciting for us that Wales has been selected to provide the test bed for BT’s new 21st Century Network This investment by BT clearly signifies that Cardiff and central South Wales is one of Europe’s most dynamic and progressive regions. The end result will transform our personal and business lives, and help attract high-tech industry and services to Wales.”
Matt Bross, BT group’s chief technology officer, said, “This roll-out will be the first time anywhere in the world that customers will have communications services provided over such a radical next generation network.”
“The operational experience that we gain in Cardiff and the surrounding area will enable us to move full steam ahead and deliver 21CN to everyone in the UK – migrating a total of 30 million lines – in just four years.”
“It’s an enormous technical and operational challenge, but will enable customers to benefit from compelling new services.”
How the installation and implementation of the service – and the customer feedback – works out will help BT finalise plans to roll out 21CN to customers across the UK by the end of the decade.
BT 21st Century Network
4 July, 2005
Wales First For BT’s 21CN Next-Gen Network Rollout: Details Emerge
BT has released detailed plans for the rollout of its next generation 21CN network.
The technology will form the basis of BTs voice and data services for the near future, with the first area to be linked into the network being Cardiff.
And what finer city could they possibly start with?!
Between November 2006 and Summer 2007, 350,000 customers in the lovely, lovely Principality will be hooked up to the new network, with a rolling program scheduled to connect the rest of the country starting in 2008.
BT says that nationwide coverage should “substantially complete” by the end of the decade.
The 21CN network project sees BT shifting all voice and data services onto a single IP network that will carry fixed, mobile, voice, data, and video on-demand at speeds of up to 24 Mbps.
“Rebuilding the core telecommunications infrastructure of the UK is a massive undertaking,” said Deb Covey, managing director of BT Wholesale networks.
“Planning the rollout programme has been a complex task with industry consulted at every stage. Work is now well underway to create the new backbone for 21CN – this has to be in place across large parts of the UK before the first customer lines are switched across,” she added.
Huw Saunders, of Kingston Communications, speaking as Industry co-chair of the Consult21 Steering Board, commented: “As an industry, we’ve participated in the development and design of BT’s programme to ensure that it takes into account the needs of everyone, regardless of which communications provider they choose to take services from.”
“What happens in Cardiff in a few short months is only the beginning of the journey,” he observed.
We only hope he wasn’t referring to Saturday night punch-ups on St Mary’s Street.
What is 21CN?
Here’s how BT describes the new technology:
“21CN is BT’s next generation network which it is building in the UK and throughout the markets we serve. It is an advanced broadband network based on intelligent systems, Internet Protocol (IP), Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) and Multi-Protocol Label Switching (MPLS). IP is key to 21CN because it has the potential to act as a common transport protocol for all types of communication and applications; SIP allows the service provider to control the communications activity to meet a customer’s requirements and MPLS enables the efficient designation and routing of IP traffic flows.”
BT 21CN
9 October, 2006
Ofcom Gives BT OK For Ebbsfleet Fibre Trial Line Rental Discounts
Ofcom are altering the very grandly named, “Universal Service Condition 1,” to let BT provide discounted connections to people on their Ebbsfleet Fibre optic trial, which plans to provide network connections of up to 100Mbps.
(more…)
1 August, 2008
Backgrounder on Local Loop Unbundling in the UK Pt 3/3
With all of these moves towards digital delivery in entertainment, we thought it would be worthwhile understanding one of the key items in this process – how to get the digital content to UK households.
Steve Kennedy is an acknowledged expert in the telecoms and data networks field, so it was an obvious choice for us to ask him to write an overview of how other IP operators can compete with BT – by creating their own data network. To do this, they need to put their own equipment into the telephone exchanges that connect to peoples houses. That process is Local Loop Unbundling (LLU).
Over three parts, we’ll give you a full background in LLU in the UK.
The two previous pieces gave an overview of LLU and which companies are players in the UK; and LLU Penetration in the UK and the (un)Economics of it.
OpenLLU
The operators should have joined forces and built a single LLU infrastructure between them and then competed on service. This would have meant a second national network to compete with BT’s 21CN allowing operators to compete with BT on their own terms.
Also a single network would have meant it could go to many more of the 5,600 DLEs than the 1,200 everyone’s competing for at the moment.
Unfortunately competition is so fierce between the telecoms operators it will never happen – much to their joint detriment.
Broadband Competition
BT is still the biggest player by far and they’ll try and increase market share when they launch their 21CN. Many operators are underestimating the effect of BT’s 21CN and how quickly BT can launch it.
When they do launch, they are trying to get back to a situation whereby everyone else once again becomes a BT reseller.
Virgin Media have around 4m customers, but they have little money for expansion and are likely to use LLU in future to provide broadband services. They’re stance is even worse now Sky have pulled their basic channels, which is likely to cause customers to migrate to Sky and if enough go, then Virgin Media may be in a sticky situation (the city won’t look kindly on a reduced customer base).
Wireless is the next big hope
Unfortunately there’s very little spectrum available for wireless broadband in the UK, though 2.5GHz is going to be made available for auction later this year, but it wont be cheap. It was reserved for 3G use, so there may be bids from 3G operators but it’s also bang in the middle of the frequencies WiMAX can use (BT have already said they’re interested in bidding for it).
Other companies who do have spectrum are: –
* PCCW (UK Broadband) who have a national 3.4GHz license.
* Pipex Wireless who have a national 3.6/4.2 GHz license.
It’s not clear whether the recent Pipex sale announcement covers the wireless side or not.
Future
Content will be key, access will just be a delivery channel for content and broadband will just be a commodity item (making it even more uneconomic to roll-out).
There’s going to be even more consolidation in the industry and BT will win either way (more LLU customers mean BT get more customers, if it fails, BT Wholesale get more customers).
BT will also dominate when they roll-out their 21CN, they want to be the Sky of fixed networks i.e. use them to deliver the content and they take a big chunk for the customer charge for doing so).
The future’s bright – but only for BT.
16 April, 2007
Huawei: “Who are We?” If You’re In Comms, You’ll Be Finding Out
In 2004 the networking giant Cisco sued a little-known Chinese company called Huawei for IP (Intellectual Property) theft. Some two months later the case was dropped and settled out of court. Huawei promised to modify their designs, change their software and manuals. Rumours circulating at the time alleged that the Chinese government got involved and told Cisco that if they wanted to operate in China, they should leave Huawei alone.
Huawei was started by People’s Liberation Army officer Ren Zhengfei in 1988, specialising in the research and development of communications systems.
In the west the initial push has been towards core networking equipment for carriers and ISPs (markets which have historically been dominated by Cisco). In this market, Cisco’s normal approach was to offer a base product, then charge extra for additional software feature sets. Huawei’s approach is …. more generous, they include the all of the ‘extras’, while pricing the system around 60% of what Cisco charges for the base platform alone.
Support – throwing people at it
Low, all-inclusive pricing isn’t Huawei’s only winning approach.
If a large customer of Cisco reports a problem, it goes into their tracking system and the customer might be lucky if it’s looked at in a few days. If it’s identified as a bug, it might take a few weeks to isolate and fix.
In China engineering talent is relatively cheap and their universities produce very high class students (and lots of them). This brings Huawei another advantage – huge manpower. When bugs are passed to Huawei, they go to their pool of, something like, 20,000 engineers, leading to the faults being tracked and fixed extremely quickly.
The Big Boys are buying Huawei too
Slowly Huawei started to make big inroads into the high-end markets. BT has even selected them as part of their 21st Century Network, (21CN). It’s rumoured in the market, that this will lead to the demise of Marconi (who failed to be selected, even though they’d been a partner of BT for decades).
Cisco – that’s just the start
If you’re in any form of communication business, don’t kick back and think, “Well Cisco needs a competitor. We should be OK.” Huawei’s plans extend far beyond merely eating Cisco’s lunch.
If you get a chance to wander into Huawei’s showroom in China, you may be lucky enough to get taken into a hangar the size of a football field. In one small area there’s the ISP/Telcocore kit, we’ve mentioneed. The rest of the space is filled with other technologies such as IN (Intelligent Network – the brains behind telco voice networks), GSM, GPRS, Edge, 3G, NGN (Next Generation Networks i.e. IP-based voice and data networks like BT’s 21CN), xDSL (both end-user and network), optical (driving fibres), routers and LAN switches and of course consumer devices for it all.
Huawei are currently supplying all sorts of companies. Ever wondered who makes the new USB 3G datacard for Vodafone (the USB one that works on Windows, Mac and Linux)? Huawei.
Initially Huawei picked a ‘small’ market to concentrate on, but now they’re ready to attack the bigger ones. They have the equipment, and the resources to make a huge dent into the existing players markets of all sorts. It won’t just be Cisco suffering.
Huawei
7 September, 2006
BT Cashes In To Goverment Money
BT have been enjoying government payouts to maintain their networks.
Interesting news for all those that thought it was many years since BT was an ailing monopoly to be propped up by a Labour government.
It was revealed in an answer to a parliamentary question (text below), that around £7 million has been paid to BT in England and Wales, and a contract for work in Scotland, that is not yet complete, should benefit the Telco goliath to the tune of a further £16.5 million. BT has also received undisclosed sums from the East Midlands Development Agency to extend broadband availability in the region.
Now this might come as a surprise to those who’ve got the impression that BT was doing this along with its investment in the so-called 21C network, as some sort of “Noblesse Oblige”.
Looking back over our archives for January of this year, it put a smile on our faces to see BT, when defending itself against smears of improper financial assistance related to the UK property rating system, responded to criticism leveled by those terrible bureaucrats in Brussels with…
“BT is surprised that the European Commission is to investigate the UK government over the property rates that BT has been paying. In BT’s view, any allegation of state aid would be groundless as BT has received no benefit from the UK government. BT is confident that the UK government will demonstrate the fairness of the UK ratings system.”
Expect smaller UK operators to cry foul – with some justification – as they see the dominant player’s position reinforced by government money, and BT’s competitive edge further strengthened in areas that include upgrading their network for TV delivery.
(Ed: Looking at this information, it feels wrong that BT are being given public money to maintain their network, one which they are directly gaining income from. This benefit isn’t passed back to the general public who are funding it, but instead to BT’s shareholders.
—-Fully text of the questions and answer.
Stephen Crabb (Preseli Pembrokeshire, Con)
To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what the total amount of financial subsidies and grants received by BT has been since 1997 for the purpose of extending broadband availability in the UK.
Alun Michael (Minister of State (State (Industry and the Regions)), Department of Trade and Industry)
Since 1997 BT has received the following financial sums to enable exchanges to extend broadband availability in the UK:East of England Development Agency paid BT approximately £500,000, to enable most of their remaining exchanges in BED A areas. This was awarded through the Broadband Aggregation programme.
Following a competitive tender South West Regional Development Agency awarded BT approximately £3900,000 to enable some exchanges in the Cornwall area.
Following a competitive tender, BT in Wales was awarded £3.6 million of European Structural Funding to upgrade over 40 BT telephone exchanges from UXD5, making ISDB2 services available to 99 per cent. of BT lines. The investment was also used to enable Digital Subscriber Lines, ahead of the commercial roll-out programme for the UK, in BT exchanges in market towns across Wales. It is estimated that the total project value was around £6 million.
Following a full EU Procurement Process to extend broadband availability in the North East region, BT was paid £1,830,345. This sum is subject to a downward adjustment, in accordance with a reverse contribution scheme, which operates to repay money to the Agency if broadband take up in the region exceeds a prescribed level.
£364k was awarded to Vale Royal Local Authority acting on behalf of the Cheshire Digital Development Agency who, following a competitive tender through the North West Regional Aggregation Body, awarded BT a contract to enable of a series of remote rural exchanges in Cheshire.
In Cumbria, Your Communications was awarded a large infrastructure project (Project Access) contract for approximately £17 million following a negotiated, state aid approved OJEU competitive tender. Your Communications sub contracted part of the contract with a value of around £1 million to BT for the early enablement of all the exchanges in Cumbria and specifically for the enablement of 14 exchanges in the remotest areas of the sub region.
In Scotland £16.5 million was awarded to BT following competitive tender. The roll-out has not yet been completed so not all the money has been paid as yet. The European Commission was notified under State Aid rules.East Midlands Development Agency has worked with BT on a number of sub- regional strategic partnerships, to extend broadband availability. As part of the contractual arrangements confidentiality agreements were signed by the sub- regional partnerships to protect information as commercial in confidence. Accordingly, this information is not be available for disclosure.
Hansard reference
1 December, 2005
BSkyB Get Into Mobile TV and VOD later
The Times have covered Richard Freudenstein, COO of BSkyB, speech at the RTS Cambridge Convention
Sky will be delivering video to mobile phones, as we’d predicted when we reported that NDS had signed a deal with Frontier Silicon.
We understand that it will include Sky Movies, Sky News and Sky Sports (which is bound to get some excited).
They also plan to let their Sky+ subscribers programme their PVR using their mobile phones.
The other biggy in Freudenstein talk was him confirming that that Sky will be offering VOD (Video On Demand) which will run over Ethernet – ie delivered over broadband. They’re not confirming dates.
Sky has been muttering about this behind closed doors to those who would listen for at least 18 months, but it’s the first time they’ve said it publicly.
Expected Sky and BT to strengthen their current cuddling relation, to a full on snog, as BT’s 21CN comes more into reality. this will provide additional bandwidth and an Ethernet port into every home in the UK, as they’re trailing in Cardiff, Wales.
The poor things at The Times have got a little bit confused between memory and storage of Sky’s PVR, Sky+, ‘newest Sky+ boxes have extra memory that is currently not used.’ Ah, isn’t it sweet. You’d have thought that two companies within the News International group would be able to understand each other business.
BSkyB
16 September, 2005

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