A little inside information by an Employee.

[Escapee]

Originally Posted by Shaun

Surely as the cable is already there all they need to do is re'pull the cables. It's not like they are starting from scratch the ducting and roadside cabinets are already there.

Have you seen the state of the cabinets, I suggest you have a look inside when you next see an engineer working in one. Their network at cabinet level is typically a shambles that is both very old and went through a period of bad maintenance.

The cabinets would not be suitable for fibre management, and you always have to figure in x-amount of civils for collapsed ducts when considering pulling new cables. You must also remember that their network is completely different to ntl's, the customer drop can be considered as a pair of cables going all the way back to the local exchange. The length of the drop can be measured in miles and not 10's of meters in the typical ntl scenario.

[Shaun]

Even so I can't see it taking 50 to 100 years to replace BT's last mile. The phone was only invented ~125 year ago and the net's only been big for the past 10-15. Things move quickley when they want. Hell Cable itself was only created really in the 80s

[Chrysalis]

Ofcoms recent analysis on alternaitves to copper indicates they arent going to be backing fibre to the home any time soon, fibre to the cabinet was the only one they "may" back but they indicated it offered no cost savings over copper, and cost savings is the only thing that would probably make the BT shareholders approve the change. I think the bigger clinger tho is how it will disrupt LLU, ofcom is a big fan of LLU been competitive, FTTC would mean LLU providers having to run their fibre to cabinets to install their dslams there which will be very uneconomical for them as they may only have half a dozen or so customers per cabinet.

[Womble]

Originally Posted by Chrysalis

Ofcoms recent analysis on alternaitves to copper indicates they arent going to be backing fibre to the home any time soon, fibre to the cabinet was the only one they "may" back but they indicated it offered no cost savings over copper, and cost savings is the only thing that would probably make the BT shareholders approve the change. .

I have said before, the long-term plan is ethernet not fibre. So all you do is replace the bell wire with ethernet

Originally Posted by Chrysalis

I think the bigger clinger tho is how it will disrupt LLU, ofcom is a big fan of LLU been competitive, FTTC would mean LLU providers having to run their fibre to cabinets to install their dslams there which will be very uneconomical for them as they may only have half a dozen or so customers per cabinet.

BT's plan is to leave the " old switches" to the mercy of the LLU boys n gals, and ride off merrily into the sunset on their 21CN with all their subs fed on ethernet

Thats the looooooooooooooooooong term plan. I have been privy to the mins from a high level meeting via a mate

[Stuart]

Originally Posted by Shaun

Surely as the cable is already there all they need to do is re'pull the cables. It's not like they are starting from scratch the ducting and roadside cabinets are already there.

That's a little like saying that all Thames Water needs to do is patch up the pipework in London. It may be, but according to a programme I saw, at the rate they are repairing pipes in London, it will still take > 128 years to repair all the damage.

It's taken BT nearly 15 years to bring ADSL to most of the country. To replace the "Last Mile" for their tens of millions of subscribers is, AFAIK, a job that is a lot larger, and more costly. I can't see BT spending potentially hundreds of millions of pounds when, for the time being at least, as the various ADSL standards would be a lot cheaper to implement.

[arfur_mo]

hi stuart,
is what you say a bit flawed, your statement about fibere optics offers the impression (to the unwary) that it is a completely fibre connection from exchange to home, where in fact it is the backbone which is fibre but from the distribution cabinet node its copper screened.

speeds are also dependent on how many users per node, so your figures are based on mr billy no mates being the only one on that node to attain the maximum speeds.

regs
alan

[Stuart]

Originally Posted by arfur_mo

hi stuart,
is what you say a bit flawed, your statement about fibere optics offers the impression (to the unwary) that it is a completely fibre connection from exchange to home, where in fact it is the backbone which is fibre but from the distribution cabinet node its copper screened.

speeds are also dependent on how many users per node, so your figures are based on mr billy no mates being the only one on that node to attain the maximum speeds.

regs
alan

My statement is not flawed. I never mentioned what BT would be replacing the last mile with. I also didn't mention speed.

to the forum, btw.

[Escapee]

I think the bottom line is the majority of operators now run in a cost driven environment as opposed to a technology driven environment.

Network operators are in the business of making shareholders money, customers wanting and expecting them to invest heavily in cash they may never recover is a very low priority.

I think we will see technology evolving to use the current network technology that's already in place for the foreseeable future, as opposed to companies spending vast amounts of money to implement the latest system just because customers want, want, want.

[popper]

Originally Posted by Escapee

I think the bottom line is the majority of operators now run in a cost driven environment as opposed to a technology driven environment.

Network operators are in the business of making shareholders money, customers wanting and expecting them to invest heavily in cash they may never recover is a very low priority.

I think we will see technology evolving to use the current network technology that's already in place for the foreseeable future, as opposed to companies spending vast amounts of money to implement the latest system just because customers want, want, want.

yeah your probably right, but im reasonably sure that signing that mpeg-2 tvdrive/liberate contract will come back to bite em sooner rather than later.

the liberate gui middleware does'nt do them or the users any favours eather over the longer term, if they dont have the capable AVC STB at the users end, then new software services,far better interactive GUI, micro payment gaming and all the rest are all no go area's for the stb as it stands now.

they (is it an external or internal Virgin-Media liberate SW team btw?)might be able to coble together something that almost works, but will it be enough for paying customers or more to the point get new users from sky etc....

[T.F.S.B.I.G.W.S.]

I discovered today that Digital TV On Demand is not available. An error message "This service is not available. Please contact NTL Customer Services. IS009".
I phoned the number and was finally connected to a gentleman who was very difficult to understand and was told that I would be contacted within 6 days to advise as to why the service is not available.
I would appreciate some of your inside information as I am certainly not impressed!

[Gopher]

Originally Posted by pharrell

Having worked for BT, Sky, TalkTalk (Carphone Warehouse) & HomeCall (Phones4u) whilst being a student, and now a full time position with NTL.Telewest I have the information to inform customers of all products and prices, and keep myself upto date with product information regularly.

First let me start off by saying, this offer everyone keeps talking about, with Sky giving free broadband, there is a 2Gibabyte monthly usage limit - as soon as this is exceeded, you will be charged accordingly - no company gives broadband away for free, and doesn't make a profit somewhere along the line, they have shareholders to please, not just their customers.

Secondly, BT's broadband, UPTO 8MB, only 7% of the UK are eligable to recieve this (you need to live close to the Local Exchange Data Centre), as BT use old 1870's copper wire network technology, when NTL.Telewest have fibre-optic cables which can support upto 100MB/s - To put this into perspective, South Korea only have fibre-optic cables, and their average broadband user is on a 90-100MB/s connection, and with Japan, they have the capability to give 1GB (1024MB) broadband to users - They have the fastest broadband connections in the world - so fibre-optics is the broadband of the future, where as BT would have to spend over £7billion to upgrade their networks, which I can't see them doing for at least the next 15/20years, and only because they will have to, to keep up with the rest of the world - and as TalkTalk, HomeCall, Sky, Toucan and any other major ISP all "piggy-back" on BT's network, they will be stuck in a loop too - why do you think AOL (America On-Line) have just signed a major contract with NTL.Telewest, so their customers can enjoy the benefits when the UK catches up with the rest of the world, especially the Far East.

As for the prices, NTL.Telewest give you free Line Rental (with CableTV packages), Free Weekend Calls to all Local & National UK home telephones - Our call package prices are dropping, we are the first company in Europe to offer "Quad-Play" - visit the websites, compare the prices, and you will see, NTL.Telewest works out cheaper, and you will be able to get it all on the one bill, so it's convenient too.

I know there will be questions and querys, so i'll drop by and answer them, untill then, Enjoy NTL.Telewest if you are with them, and if not, jump on the bandwagon quickly, or be stuck with the service a developing country would have.

Regards,

A Customer Care Advisor.

ADMIN EDIT (Russ) - Please keep the personal insults to yourself, thanks.

[Gareth]

Thought some of you might find this interesting...

Link: http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/98216/bt...tothehome.html [pcpro.co.uk]

BT has no plans to introduce fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) in the UK, insisting that its 21CN project will provide enough bandwidth for UK consumers' requirements.
Paul Reynolds, CEO of BT Wholesale, told the DigiWorld 2006 Summit in Montpellier, France, that he does not believe there is a business case for connecting homes with high-speed optical fibre technology.

'We'll be launching ADSL2+ next year, which gives speeds of up to 24Mbps and will comfortably support customers' immediate needs, including IPTV, he said, adding that he can not see any additional revenues from installing FTTH.

[Womble]

BT is undertaking the biggest network and strategic transformation project by any telco in the world. Over a five-year period, starting from 2004, the UK incumbent is to spend a staggering £10 bn (US$18.7 bn) on moving customers from its legacy infrastructure onto its next-generation 21st Century Network (21CN).
By the end of this decade, the BT plan is for the PSTN to be shut down, along with the majority of its 16 legacy platforms. The more platforms that can be ‘collapsedâ €™ and managed on the 21CN, the greater the cost-savings prize.

Given the enormity of the project, it should come as no surprise that Matt Beal � who is responsible for managing the network transformation � has plenty of things to keep him awake at night. “There is always the question of are we going to be truly ready for our customers to come over onto the 21CN,� he says. “What is it that we don’t know that’s waiting to bite us?�

By the time you read this, Beal � who’s full job title is director of 21CN core convergence and capabilities � may just have a clearer idea of how ready the UK incumbent actually is to move to an all-IP network. When Telecommunications® International had a chat with him in mid-October, BT was only weeks away from migrating its first PSTN customers, based in Cardiff (Wales), onto the 21CN.
Cardiff represents, in Beal’s words, the ‘slow ramp-up’ of 21CN. Phase one involves ‘upgradingâ €™ ten percent of customer PSTN lines to VoIP in the city starting this month (November); it will be followed by the second phase â€� running between April and May next year â€� to upgrade a further ten per cent of lines. The third and final phase is to upgrade 350,000 customer lines in Cardiff and the surrounding area during next summer, which includes 90,000 broadband and ISDN lines. BT will then take a period of time to assess how effective the migration process has been before rolling out the 21CN nationwide.

“The purpose of the work in Cardiff is to validate we can deliver quality service to customers and for us to learn from the rollout experience,� says Beal. “We want to give the rest of industry [BT’s wholesale customers] confidence.�

Reducing the potential risk, understandably, lies at the heart of Beal’s planning for 21CN transformation. The first 21CN customers in Cardiff, for example, will â€â€ÂÂ� initially â€â€ÂÂ� not be able to do anything other than the ‘legacyâà¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚¬Ã¢â€žÂ¢ services that they have been used to. “If we try and enable new services immediately, we would probably break some of the old services along the way,â€ÂÂÂ� says Beal. “Our first priority must be for the successful migration of the old services.â€ÂÂÂ�

De-risking the 21CN project includes not immediately migrating private point-to-point circuit-based lines, which typically carry mission-critical applications, onto the all-IP network. Private point-to-point lines in Cardiff, for example, are not to be transferred onto the 21CN, says BT, until ‘much later in the programme’.

Despite these precautions, Beal feels it’s unrealistic not to expect to run into some implementation problems along the way in a project of this magnitude. “There is only so much you can do in small-scale lab testing,� he says. “It could very well be that we find critical vendor faults or critical BT faults.�

For Beal, this is all part of the necessary pain of going from being a twentieth century telco to something much more than that � a twenty-first century company pushing into what Beal calls ‘adjacent industries’, such as entertainment, and creating ‘new wave’ revenue. “No other carrier is moving as fully into convergence and multi-services as we are doing,� he asserts.

So is 21CN on track? One target that BT has set is to cut opex by at least £1 bn per annum during its 2008/09 fiscal year and to fully close down the PSTN the following year. Beal believes those targets are within reach, but, by his own admission, the timetable for the closure of all of BT’s legacy platforms is more fuzzy. The UK incumbent is still in discussion with utility customers, for example, who are seeking reassurance that 21CN can deliver the same performance levels of the point-to-point TDM-based SDH networks they currently use from BT.

But Beal emphasises that the £1 bn opex reduction target is not fully derived from the closure of all its legacy network platforms, and nor is the 21CN project itself only about network transformation.

“There are three primary objectives for 21CN,� he explains. “One is our customer experience programme, which focuses on process re-engineering to deliver services better [self-automation]. Another is to simplify our portfolio and get services to market quicker. The third is cost reduction. But it is possible to achieve cost reduction through these other two programmes.�

By this reasoning, Beal expects the opex cost savings to go beyond the £1 bn level as network migration to 21CN continues after the 2008/09 fiscal year.

For BT to achieve its targets, however, it will require an unprecedented amount of collaboration among the vendor community. BT has selected eight ‘preferred suppliers’ for its 21CN rollout, and, between them, they will have to make all the equipment that comprises the 21CN � multi-service access nodes (MSANs), metro routers and switches, core routers and optical transmission kit � interoperable and adhere to open standards.

How are the vendors responding to the challenge? Beal says he is ‘pleasantly surprised’ by the amount of cooperation between the suppliers but admits BT has had some ‘knock-down fights’ with some of its 21CN vendors. “When you feel so passionate about getting it right, these things happen,� says Beal. Not surprisingly, Beal wouldn’t name the vendors that BT has had the most serious scuffles with but does say there have been ‘lots of issues to work through’ with the MSANs and the intelligent call platform.

Anticipating future technology trends is also difficult but something â€â€Â� claims Beal â€â€Â� that BT has done successfully. When he and his team put together the architecture design for 21CN back in 2003, Beal says that ethernet was ‘nowhereâà ¢â€šÂ¬Ã¢â€žÂ¢ as a carrier-grade Layer 2 technology in the wide area network. Even so, Beal says that BT still made the decision at that time to put ethernet at the ‘heart of the 21CN’, anticipating that its performance and O&M capabilities would mature. “Our vendor selection for 21CN predicted we would move into an ethernet IP/MPLS world,â€ÂÂ� says Beal. “Their capability in ethernet is phenomenal.â€ÂÂ�

Earlier this year, BT issued a request for proposal (RFP) for the use of ethernet in the backbone, which is separate from the original 21CN contracts. Beal doesn’t see this as a threat to Cisco, Juniper and Lucent � which are the preferred suppliers of Layer 3 IP/MPLS core routers for the 21CN project � or an indication that BT is going cold on IP/MPLS. “There is no reason to get religious about this, as it won’t be one or the other,� says Beal. “We are looking at ethernet to deliver resilient point-to-point services, but we will still need IP/MPLS to deliver value-added applications to the desktop.�

While Beal wouldn’t give any detail on the ethernet RFP, he says the decision to have one was just the ‘natural process’ of continually looking at what the most cost-effective solutions are in the market. PBT (provider backbone transport), an ethernet-based WAN transmission technology that BT has jointly developed with Nortel, is seen by Beal as a carrier-grade contender for 21CN but adds that he ‘honestly doesn’t know which bid will win out’.

Aside from vendor cooperation, BT has needed to work closely with its wholesale customers to work out ways to transfer legacy services and establish interconnection processes to 21CN � that are open and transparent � to deliver next-generation services. Beal says he has been ‘surprised and impressed’ by the support received from industry so far.

“If 21CN is to be successful, we need to communicate early in an open, honest and transparent way,â€ÂÂÂ� says Beal. “Itââà ¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚¬Ã¢â€žÂ¢s a different way of thinking from the past. We can’t afford to have a ‘them and us’ attitude â€â€ÂÂ� us and our competitors, us and the regulator, us and our customers. We’re having to go through a lot of growing pains on a personal, corporate and industry level.â€ÂÂÂ�
I keep banging on about BT upgrading the last mile, well here it is from the horses mouth

http://www.telecommagazine.com/Inter...?HH_ID=AR_2532

[Chrysalis]

Well that sounds like its to do with the last mile but when I mentioned this on adslguide I got told its just ATM been shut down on the core network so phonecalls going over voip etc. but the last mile will remain the same. So 21cn will have very few initial benefits to the average customer and is mainly about cutting bts operating costs.

I am not saying I am right just going on what I have been told.

[T.F.S.B.I.G.W.S.]

Originally Posted by T.F.S.B.I.G.W.S.

I discovered today that Digital TV On Demand is not available. An error message "This service is not available. Please contact NTL Customer Services. IS009".
I phoned the number and was finally connected to a gentleman who was very difficult to understand and was told that I would be contacted within 6 days to advise as to why the service is not available.
I would appreciate some of your inside information as I am certainly not impressed!

The 6 day deadline has passed and NTL have failed to solve this problem. I have contacted them and been told that they have a huge back-log but I should not worry as they will phone me.
Any chance of some Inside Information