21CN - key milestones for the UKBT announced its vision, strategy and proposed timeline for 21CN in June 2004, followed by the announcement of its preferred strategic technology suppliers for the programme in April 2005.
BT made communications history on Tuesday 28 November 2006 when the transfer of the first customer lines to its new next generation network began at Wick in the Vale of Glamorgan.
In September 2006, BT confirmed that Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales and each of the English regions will benefit from £100s of millions of direct 21CN investment. Regional development organisations are encouraged to get ready to capitalise on the opportunity that 21CN presents for the benefit of the people that live there and businesses that operate there. BT believes it is the only operator in the world to commit to a planned national rollout of a next generation network - including customers in remote parts of the country.
A great deal of progress has already been achieved - forty per cent of the UK infrastructure has been re-built; thousands of kilometres of optical fibre have been installed; and thousands of 'man years' of testing and development have been successfully completed. With industry agreement, we are prioritising the delivery of new services, such as Ethernet and next generation broadband, ahead of migrating existing services. This ensures that the new services become available as quickly as possible. Following a window of customer-led migration, periods of mass migration will follow allowing BT’s legacy networks to be switched off.
Wholesale Ethernet services started running on 21CN in January 2008 and in April 2008 BT Wholesale introduced its next generation broadband service which will enable BT’s customers - the CPs - to meet demand from their customers for new feature-rich multimedia and multi-play services. Expected to reach potentially 10million end users by April 2009, Wholesale Broadband Connect will progressively rollout across the country. Where end users are connected to a 21CN broadband-enabled exchange, communication providers will be able to choose to supply end users with products and services based on BT’s next generation broadband wholesale service.
BT believes it is the only operator in the world to commit to a planned national rollout of a next generation network and regional development organisations are encouraged to get ready to capitalise on the opportunity that 21CN presents for the benefit of the people that live there and businesses that operate there.