21CN plan updates
BT has recently issued its updated 21CN programme plan - referred to as the deployment strategy plan (DSP). The aim of the DSP is to help service providers, who deliver products and services over the BT network, keep up-to-date on 21CN activities and progress. This plan will now be updated and reissued on a formal basis every quarter to Ofcom and the industry. The DSP contains a recap on key drivers for the programme, a two year site enablement plan and customer migration activity details.
Service providers with a direct relationship with BT can obtain a copy of the DSP by going to the secure area of the Consult21 website when they have applied for access www.btwholesale.com/c21members. All other resellers should contact their supplier for updates.
Some highlights
Voice services
Wholesale Line Rental (WLR) is Openreach's mainstream voice product that enables service providers to offer their own branded telephony and ISDN services to customers. There are currently two variants - WLR2 and WLR3. WLR3 will be seamlessly switched to 21CN on a rolling geographic basis from April 2010 and the end user experience of using the service should be practically unchanged. Any minor differences in look-and-feel will be shared with the industry following current discussions with suppliers. WLR2 is planned to be withdrawn in 2010.
In parallel following the launch of BT Wholesale's next generation wholesale broadband product in April this year (read more about it in the May newsletter) there are a couple of additional next generation wholesale broadband and voice products in the pipeline.
Firstly Wholesale Broadband Connect Converged (WBCC) is a product that offers voice and broadband as a single package. This allows a single ordering process, a single interface and even a single bill. This is planned to be made available to service providers from January 2010 in specific geographies and then on a wider basis once national migration has started from the end of April 2010. Once an exchange has been fully migrated across to 21CN, WBCC will be available in that exchange. Secondly, within the same timescales, a voice only offering - Wholesale Voice Connect (WVC) is planned to be offered.
Voice pilot activities
This continues in the South Wales area and involves the migration of existing voice services to test all elements of the migration process before national rollout in April 2010 with further migrations planned from November 2008. Service providers with voice service customers in this area of South Wales have been advised.
ISDN services
ISDN will be supported on 21CN. There is additional pilot migration activity planned to take place in Northern Ireland where ISDN migration activities will be tested before larger scale migration to 21CN. We will update you with the details in future newsletters. Other IP products with the potential to replace certain ISDN applications will also be developed on 21CN.
Data products
BT will continue to support Time Division Multiplex (TDM) services on 20C until 2014, whilst starting to use 21CN to provide native TDM services from December 2009 for a sub-segment of the current TDM portfolio, beginning with 2Mbit/s services. There are feasibility studies underway on other TDM access/backhaul products to be delivered over 21CN. Next generation ethernet products have already been made available this year running over 21CN.
Like to hear updates on a call?
The Consult21 team at BT will be running short update calls on a quarterly basis to coincide with the issue of the latest plan. To view the webcall held on the 17 October go to:
Presentation: Quarterly update slides - 17th October 08
Recording: Quarterly update - held on 17th October 08
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Everything you need to communicate with your customers
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The switched-on campaign
Switched-on is the independent, non-commercial communications campaign to inform consumers and small and medium sized businesses of the migration. Activity includes a nationwide leaflet drop, SME mailing and a communications toolkit for resellers.
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