Posted: 06th Mar, 2006 By: MarkJ
BT has signed contracts with the remaining four preferred suppliers for its next generation network transformation programme the 21st Century Network (21CN):
Contracts have been signed with Alcatel, Cisco, Ericsson and Fujitsu. This follows the announcement on 23rd December 2005 that contracts have been signed with Ciena, Huawei, Lucent and Siemens.
Alcatel and Cisco have been selected to supply metro nodes providing routing and signalling for 21CNs voice, data and video services. Cisco has also been selected to supply large scale routers providing high capacity, cost efficient connections between metro nodes. Ericsson has been selected in the i-node domain in essence the intelligence that controls the services. Fujitsu will be providing access technology which will link BTs existing network with the new 21CN.
21CN will completely transform BTs networks reducing complexity and radically reducing BTs cost base with identified savings of around one billion pounds a year by 2008/09. The migration of customer lines to the new infrastructure is expected to begin in Cardiff during the second half of 2006.