What is 21CN?
21CN is BT’s world leading, software driven customer network that introduces a new, simpler portfolio of next generation services.
Fundamentally 21CN is about customer choice. Based on open systems, standards, APIs and an open philosophy, 21CN is a platform for innovation that truly puts flexibility and choice in the hands of our customers - both in the UK and across the world.
Why is BT developing 21CN?
21CN is the foundation for BT’s transformation into a global, software-driven communications business enabling BT to deliver communications services that meet all of its customers' requirements in the coming decades. End-users increasingly expect to use communications wherever they are and want communications to come to them via whatever device or system they have to hand.
In essence, 21CN has three key objectives:
And BT is seeking to achieve these all at the same time. 21CN is an immense task, and it demonstrates BT's determination to be forward looking, both for the sake of its wholesale and retail customers and its own financial and technological needs.
Who will benefit from 21CN?
BT's creating a world-leading network that releases the full potential of communications to improve the quality of people's lives - through better access to information, through economic growth and through simply being able to stay in touch.
So what exciting new converged services can end-user customers have today?
Convergence is the future for communications and 21CN is designed to make it simple and easy. Today’s services based on the convergence of voice, mobility, video, data and content include, for example, BT Vision - our next generation television service which puts the viewer in control by combining the appeal of TV with the interactivity of broadband; BT Fusion is the mobile phone service which switches to a broadband landline when the user arrives home or, for business users, at the office and Broadband Anywhere enables you to read e-mails, check the football score or compare prices when shopping, waiting for a train or having a coffee.
What new 21CN services can end users expect?
BT's 21CN wholesale broadband service, Wholesale Broadband Connect, is available from exchanges serving 10million UK homes and businesses and, over the next year, BT plans, subject to customer and market demand, to extend its next generation broadband coverage to exchanges serving up to 55% of UK homes and businesses.
Where end users are connected to 21CN-enabled exchanges, CPs are able to supply end users with products and services based on the wholesale service. We are helping our wholesale customers move forward as quickly as possible to introduce end user products taking full advantage of this major investment. Already thousands of end users are receiving 21CN broadband services and BT Wholesale is predicting a considerable step change in the growth rate by summer time.
Additionally, BT has the largest footprint in the UK for high-speed Ethernet services. Our 21CN Ethernet service is currently available from more than 600 UK nodes - additional rollout and increased functionality continues.
Exciting new software services are coming on stream too. Salesforce.com already offers the ability for audio messages to be transcribed into searchable text and this marks the start of the introduction of Cloud Computing and Software as a Service services.
Can you tell me more about Wholesale Ethernet?
Designed to meet the future demand of large enterprise and SMEs customers, Wholesale Ethernet is a cost effective networking service to complement or replace traditional data enterprise services. This MPLS-based service supports converged applications, including VoIP and offers scalable bandwidth and flexible service level guarantees.
BT Wholesale’s next generation national Ethernet service was the first 21CN product. It provides flexible bandwidth between two Ethernet ports in point-to-point and point-to-multipoint configurations. BT has the widest UK availability of Ethernet services with more than 600 nodes deployed - and rollout continues. Over time circuit bandwidth options will range from 1Mbit/s to 1Gbit/s, with access speeds available between 2Mbit/s and 10Gbit/s. Wholesale Ethernet enables communications providers to offer their customers a truly flexible service, avoiding the costs associated with network over extension.
What’s next generation broadband?
In April 2008, BT Wholesale introduced Wholesale Broadband Connect (WBC) - its next generation broadband service, running over 21CN – and it’s now available from exchanges serving 10Million UK homes and businesses.
This marks the start of a new era for broadband in the UK. WBC is designed to let end users enjoy a range of high speed services and offers a much richer broadband experience than ever before. Tiered quality of service, guaranteed service level agreements, the ability to trade speed for more line stability…allows communications providers to tailor services for their end user customers, opening the door to much more end user control, choice and flexibility. Improved line diagnostics and sophisticated line management are improving the customer experience too.
The portfolio consists of a component-based service available for CPs with their own networks; a managed wholesale product designed for CPs preferring a seamless end-to-end service and a ‘pay-as-you-grow’ service called BT Plusnet Partner. Trials of BT’s fibre-to-the-cabinet services start shortly which will also be part of BT Wholesale’s family of next generation broadband services.
Will everybody in the UK get a 24Mbit/s broadband service?
BT Wholesale has introduced its next generation broadband service – called Wholesale Broadband Connect – into the market place and its functionality and availability will increase overtime. Where end users' are connected to a 21CN broadband-enabled exchange, communication providers can choose to supply end users with products based on these next generation broadband services.
The ADSL2+ equipment deployed in exchanges supports a theoretical maximum speed of 24Mbit/s and end customer lines will deliver the highest possible stable speeds they can support. However, distance from the exchange, internal wiring, interference from electrical appliances and other factors will continue to affect an end user’s broadband speed.
But there is more to next generation broadband that speed. It opens the door to greater control, choice, flexibility and differentiation. WBC can prioritise different types of data running along the end user’s line and its specially designed software changes the dynamics of each line so the service is more reliable and runs at optimum levels.
Is the 21CN vision just about a change in BT's technology?
No, 21CN is the foundation for BT’s transformation into a global, software-driven communications business. It’s about improving the customer experience and offering customers exciting new services, faster than ever before. 21CN is about producing network efficiencies and growing cash cost savings. It is about delivering a new model for telecoms based on open standards and is set to make interworking easier at the network access, applications and intelligence layers.
How will products and services get to market faster?
21CN is more than just a network upgrade, it is a change management programme driven to meet ever-changing customer needs. Today's customer is increasingly sophisticated - they want advanced services and products, but they need them to be simple, seamless and integrated.
A new open Innovation Platform is enabling BT, other CPs and thousands of third party developers around the world to create software applications based on BT’s 21CN capabilities. Already BT’s Software Developers Kit (SDK) is being used by thousands of independent applications developers worldwide with hundreds of new applications already in production.
Also BT has devised a set of product-independent capabilities in the form of network, systems and service components, which have features common to many products. The 'Common Capabilities' are a set of re-usable components that are being used to build products and services. Re-using proven components in this way can save time, reduce costs and increase consistency for customers, as well as enabling new services to be brought to customers faster than before.
What are BT’s 21CN achievements to date?
A great deal of progress has already been achieved.
The national 21CN UK core and transmission network is complete; BT’s global 21CN platform is now available in 170 countries worldwide; BT’s global network of virtualised data centres has been launched and over 1500 BT systems have been decommissioned.
Next generation broadband is available from exchanges serving ten million homes and businesses with coverage, subject to market demand, expected to grow to cover 55% of the UK by Spring 2010.
BT's fibre access strategy has been made possible by the successful delivery of BT's multi-service core 21CN network and the first end users are already receiving ‘super-fast broadband’ over access fibre. Also more than 75,000 end users have been successfully migrated to 21CN voice services in South Wales and BT has the widest availability of high-speed Ethernet too with more than 600 nodes deployed and rollout continues.
Salesforce.com offers the ability for audio messages to be transcribed into searchable text and this marks the start of the introduction of Cloud Computing and Software as a Service services. BT’s Software Developers Kit (SDK) is being used by thousands of independent applications developers worldwide - as well as across BT - with hundreds of new applications already in production.
In addition, thousands of kilometres of optical fibre have been installed and millions of individual tests have been successfully carried out in laboratories and in the field. Progress continues…
Who is supplying the equipment to build 21CN?
On 28 April 2005, BT announced its preferred suppliers to provide equipment for the build and roll out of 21CN. The announcement was the culmination of two years of discussions and negotiations with over 300 potential technology suppliers from all corners of the world. The extremely competitive process was one of the largest single procurement programmes ever undertaken in the communications industry.
The eight strategic suppliers chosen to work with BT were Alcatel, Ciena, Cisco, Ericsson, Fujitsu, Huawei, Lucent and Siemens. In November 2006 Alcatel and Lucent Technologies confirmed their merger.