BT Concludes Supply Deals For All-IP Network

LONDON — BT has concluded what it terms one of the largest procurement programs in the communications industry by signing contracts with Alcatel, Cisco, Ericsson and Fujitsu for the four companies’ involvement in its groundbreaking all-IP 21st Century Network (21CN) program.

The U.K. network operator sealed supply agreements late last year with Ciena, Huawei, Lucent and Siemens, and has now finalized negotiations with its chosen suppliers that started April 2005.

BT says 21CN is the world's most radical next generation network transformation program. It will require an investment of up to £10 billion (about $19 billion) over the next five years.

The operator suggests lead times for the introduction of new products and services will reduce dramatically making it significantly quicker and cheaper for businesses to bring new services to market.

Alcatel and Cisco will supply metro nodes providing routing and signalling for 21CN’s voice, data and video services. Cisco has also been selected to supply large-scale routers to link metro nodes.Ericsson has co-developed and will supply the so-called I-node — in essence the soft switches, network intelligence and bandwidth management capabilities controlling new services.

Fujitsu will be providing the access technology linking BT’s existing network with the new 21CN.

Paul Reynolds, BT Wholesale chief executive, said: “The UK is the first country in the world to move its core telecommunications infrastructure to a next generation all-IP network. The industry worldwide is watching what we are doing very closely. BT’s customers will be the first to enjoy the next generation of converged network services that 21CN enables.”

BT has claimed the project will cut its cost base by around £1 billion 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.