KCOM Prepares to Migrate from PSTN Phone to VoIP Services in Hull

East Yorkshire focused ISP KCOM, which serves Hull, has long talked about becoming one of the first cities in the UK to switch-off their ageing copper telephone service (here). As part of that they’ve contracted Amdocs to provide automated software management of their network components.

At present KCOM anticipates that their £85m and FTTP dominated “full fibre” broadband network (with a tiny bit of slower FTTC / VDSL2) should cover 100% of their area by March 2019 (i.e. around 200,000 homes and businesses). Suffice to say that this will put them into a prime position for retiring their old Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) phone services and adopting a more IP centric future.

Today we got just a little hint of what this might mean after Amdocs was contracted to upgrade their service delivery platform and enhance KCOM’s new next generation network infrastructure. Among other things this will enable the operator to deliver new Network Function Virtualization (NFV) based services to its customers.

Highlights of the Amdocs Deal

· Amdocs’ orchestration platform will support KCOM’s zero-touch customer service portal, giving it the capability to select:

— Bandwidth on-demand

— Time-bound bandwidth

— SD-WAN services

· Amdocs automated software management will ensure KCOM’s voice service is delivered through online portals.

· As KCOM migrates residential customers from PSTN to VoIP, Amdocs will help manage and automate this process.

The last one is perhaps of most interest. Amdocs clarified that “KCOM will also be migrating its [PSTN] residential customers to Voice Over Internet Protocol (VoIP) Softswitch as part of this project, where the service delivery platform from Amdocs will be able to manage and automate any fulfilment steps without affecting the voice service received by residential customers.”

Sean Royce, KCOM’s Executive Vice President for Technology, said:

“We want to improve the services we deliver to our customers and the experience we offer them. We’re starting with our voice services so need a platform that can deliver this phase and then be deployed more widely across our business as the basis for other services. By working with Amdocs, we are gaining a partner that shares KCOM’s ambitions and can grow with us.”

Sadly no timescale is given but with their FTTP network being expected to complete next year then it’s probably not very far off.