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Follow-up to the 21st century network article

Posted: Wednesday 9th June 2004 by Sam

Following the presentation this morning by BT Wholesale (slides available here), a few more things have become clear.

Two trials are being started this year. The first, as meantioned in the article earlier today, is the PSTN to VoIP trial which will be conducted at 18 exchanges in London and the East. The second trial is being called the "Deep fibre" trial and will involve the laying of fibre to customers homes and the street cabs at three exchanges in the UK. These are as follows:

Exchange	OLO Code	Region	Postcode
Kesgrave	EAKSG	East	IP5 1BU
Albert Dock	LNADK	London	E16 3AJ
Bradwell Abbey	SMBA	South East	MK6 2SY

Improved coverage maps of the two trials can be found here and here.

A rough timeline of the rollout of the 21st century network is shown below (although a more detailed version can be found on slide 23 in the BT presentation).

2004	PSTN to IP trial Deep fibre trial
2005	Broadband exceeds 99.6% availability 21CN trials finish
2006	21CN rollout (Mass PSTN to IP) commences
2007	Rollout continues
2008	Over 50% availability of network migration complete
2009	Network migration 75% complete "Broadband dialtone" available to most

It is clear that this is a major turning point in the UK telecoms industry. BT face an enourmous engineering challenge now, and as was pointed out in the web-cast this morning, 5 years is not a long time to complete something on this scale. BT are holding meetings with 50 potential equipment suppliers this afternoon as the tendering process begins.

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