ISP BE Broadband UK Confirms Date for Delayed Core Network Upgrade

Internet provider BE Broadband (O2 UK) has finally revealed a date for the start of its migration over to a new core network, which was originally supposed to get underway by the end of February 2012 but has since faced delays. This has also affected its FTTC superfast broadband plan.

The major upgrade, which is designed to improve the ISPs capacity, resiliency and support new features (e.g. IPv6 and FTTC superfast broadband services), will now begin around the middle of June 2012 and continue on for 50 weeks (i.e. just under 12 months) until everyone has been migrated across to the new network.

BEBroadband Statement

“For some time now, we’ve been working on a major project to overhaul BE’s ‘core’ network (the bit that we own, as opposed to the part we rent from BT), principally to enable the introduction of more advanced services, increase the bandwidth (across the core part of our network) and help prepare us for transition to IPV6. It will also increase the resiliency of our network, helping to minimise the number of customers affected when, from time to time, we experience service outages.

As we are effectively building a new ‘core’ network, we’ll need to migrate everyone across from the existing network, the result being a small amount of downtime to the Broadband service, and a change to everyone’s IP addresses. We realise this is an inconvenience, and so will be doing our utmost to minimise any impact this might have on your service.”

Most of BE’s packages came with a StaticIP address and as a result those users will need to ensure that the firmware of their BE Router has been upgraded (those with a Technicolor 582n BE Box should be fine as they are), although anybody with a DynamicIP address won’t need to do anything. Further details are now being emailed to affected customers.

According to BE the migration process will support both NEW and OLD Static IP addresses for 30 days, which should give customers plenty of time to move across. Thanks to the BE Usergroup for the heads up on this.

Regular readers might recall that BE Broadband and parent ISP O2 UK recently delayed their plans to launch a full superfast broadband (FTTC) service until 2013 (full details), which is partly because the core network upgrade would ideally need to be completed first. BE still plan to launch the new service on a “limited basis later this year“, although further details have yet to be announced.