21CN – it's all about customers

It's more than four years since BT unveiled plans for its 21st Century Network. And while some technological programmes become dated even over a short space of time, it's becoming clear that 21CN is even more relevant today than when it was originally conceived.

George Nazi After all, the availability of advanced communications networks and services has become the lifeblood for modern society. It is one of the keys to innovation and competitive advantage and it is a fundamental requirement for the UK as a major player in the global economy.

This is one of the reasons BT embarked on the 21CN programme - it represents one of the biggest investments ever in the UK's economic infrastructure by a private company.

"We believe it is the most complete, exciting and ambitious business transformation programme anywhere in the global telecommunications industry," said George Nazi, managing director, BT 21CN Core Convergence. "21CN is at the forefront of innovation and radical change. We believe 21CN will help make the UK the most vibrant and creative place for networked economic and social interaction in a converged era."

George admits, though, that the programme has not been without its challenges. "It did suffer from a slow start in the first few years," he said. "So when I took over a year and a half ago I implemented a review. I am pleased to report that since then, things have really come on apace."

"You have to understand, 21CN is about customers – not technology or products. We make sure that this is central to everything we do."

Today, the national infrastructure rebuild of the UK's metro and core sites is complete and more than 1,500 IT systems have been closed down. 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.

Customer-led programme

For George, a key element of the programme is that it's now very much customer-led with BT launching new services that benefit customers.

Wholesale Ethernet services started running over 21CN in January 2008, swiftly followed by an enterprise offering. In March, BT Wholesale introduced its next generation broadband service, enabling communications providers (CPs) to meet demand from their customers for new feature-rich multimedia and multi-play services.

"Over the last three years the progress of the programme has been phenomenal," said George. "Eighteen months ago we had not started rolling out Ethernet on 21CN - now we have the largest footprint in the UK. We have 400 sites at the moment and expect to have more than 600 by the end of the financial year. That's progress."

What people tend to forget is that 21CN isn't just a UK programme. The global network is now complete allowing customers in more than 170 countries to benefit from the development of 21CN.

What's more, BT's own strategic transformation is also moving ahead in lockstep with 21CN. Right from the outset it was understood that as a global platform, 21CN would underpin the company's transformation from a telco to a software-driven services company.

This work continues in spite of the current economic conditions. It has been bolstered by an upswing in demand for cloud services made possible by 21CN. Not only does this underline the importance of 21CN, it enables BT to capitalise upon its investment in this highly flexible, robust and scalable infrastructure.

"Even so, we're in it for the long term and looking beyond the immediate economic landscape," said George. "Take-up of services we're offering has been great. We've already sold the Ethernet proposition even before we've completed the roll-out to 600 sites. Four out of the five big mobile operators have signed contracts with us."

New capabilities

Elsewhere, Ribbit - the Silicon Valley-based 'telco 2.0' company bought by BT in July 2008 - has been fully integrated with 21CN. The technology brings together communications over mobile phones, landlines, desktop applications and internet applications.

For instance, we will soon be introducing capabilities that enable the user to manage voicemail like e-mail from the desktop, with the ability for audio messages to be transcribed into searchable text. The availability of VoIP-enabling capability for applications such as Salesforce.com on the 21CN platform has already been announced.

Ribbit currently has 8,000 developers worldwide using its capability to integrate 21CN capabilities with web-based applications. In fact, 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.

"By exposing the capabilities of 21CN to customers and application developers, BT is once again revealing its open approach to innovation," said George. "We're keen to work with our customers to create highly customised solutions that exactly meet their requirements. Of course, the fact that these solutions are all based upon common capabilities also means that we can be highly efficient."

So how would George sum up the 21CN story so far?

"This is a huge transformational programme. Every year we are going to pass milestones as we continue to deliver more and more capability. We've picked up the pace and now we're moving with the right momentum. 21CN isn't about replicating something from the past. Instead, we are providing a network for the future. In my view, it's already a big success."