BT has announced details of the first steps it will take to transition customers in the UK to its 21st century network (21CN). Starting in late November this year, BT, working closely with other communications providers, will begin the planned upgrade of customers and their voice and broadband services, in Cardiff and the surrounding area. Customers will not have to do anything for their lines to be upgraded. Telephone numbers will not change and, as all work will be carried out in BT's telephone exchanges, no roads will have to be dug up to deliver the upgrade. The first stage of the new network will be delivered in three phases, increasing in scale with each phase. Phase one, to run from November this year until March 2007, will see the upgrade of voice services to some 10% of customer lines in Cardiff and the surrounding area. Phase two, from April to mid May 2007, will deliver a further 10% upgraded lines. By the end of Phase 3 in the summer of 2007, BT will have upgraded all 350,000 customer lines. 90,000 of these lines also support broadband and ISDN2 and ISDN30 services. Private circuit-based services, which typically support business-critical corporate applications, will not be migrated on to the new network until much later in the programme. At the end of the final stage of the Cardiff upgrade, BT and other communications providers will begin an in-depth review before moving to the planned national upgrade of all remaining customers across the UK, some 30mn lines supported from over 5,500 telephone exchanges, from January 2008.
www.bt.com