BT spend £260M in the other bit of Ireland

watty

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/6384569.stm

crawler

It's a mini 21C FTTx and VDSL2 - then flog off the old exchange real estate to pay for it all :-

£260m = €416m - which out of the €500m for Ireland makes a substantial hole me thinks..

Solair

Its not "THAT" big a deal. They can't sell the real estate off. All it means is that the processing of data is a little more centralised. There will still be equipment at each exchange site, otherwise how would the end users be connected?

Even in a 20th Century Digital phone network the local exchanges were replaced with RCUs (Remote Concentrator Units) which basically encode the voice/isdn or other data and it's actually switched by a large exchange somewhere in that area.

This is just a change of backhaul technology + change of terminology it's not as big a deal as BT are making out.

Rather than the term "local exchange" insert MSAN "Multi-Service Access Node" oddly enough, it's just a telephone exchange with IP capability.
It still requires distribution frames, line cards etc to actually connect the end users to the network. So, in reality it's not a whole lot different other than your calls would be going over an IP network rather than an ATM/SDH network.

crawler

Kinda agree with you there- certainly the hype usually outstrips the reality - that said the objective of 21CN to to modernise/future proof AND reduce costs...how successful it is, time will tell.

bk

Solair wrote:

Rather than the term "local exchange" insert MSAN "Multi-Service Access Node" oddly enough, it's just a telephone exchange with IP capability.
It still requires distribution frames, line cards etc to actually connect the end users to the network. So, in reality it's not a whole lot different other than your calls would be going over an IP network rather than an ATM/SDH network.

True, but I wonder do they plan on replacing the large exchange buildings with small roadside and curbside boxes fed by fibre. They'll have to do that anyway to go VDSL.

If the exchange buildings are on valuable property, selling them could pay for some of the rollout costs.

Capt'n Midnight

bk wrote:

If the exchange buildings are on valuable property, selling them could pay for some of the rollout costs.

Shhhhh !
Eircom might sell off the last of it's assets.

Solair

They've been doing that since the 80s. A modern digital exchange (the type eircom's been using since the 80s) occupy a very small footprint. They have racks of gear with actual cabling on them, but they'd be required regardless of what technology was in use. The actual switch itself can be a device the size of a fridge-freezer.

The buildings are often enormously bigger than the exchange itself as they would have been occupied by big old electromechanical switches pre 1980s. They had racks and racks of clicking relays.

From what I can see BT's plan is mostly hype.

However, eircom's actually in a better position than they are. BT, due to government push to invest in UK companies, were forced to invest in equipment made by GPT (Marconi) called "System X". This was developed in-house by the GPO (British Post Office) during the 1970s. The majority of their local digital switches use this technology and, unfortunately it's very dead end. "System X" was never exported and was pretty much obsolete before it even went live. They've been itching to get rid of it for a while. I'd suspect some of the 21CN stuff is designed to move away from Marconi equipment.

BT also uses Ericsson AXE switching, this seems to be more likely to hang around for the forseeable future, just with upgrading to 21CN.

BT rather controvertially abandoned Marconi when they announced their 21CN network - caused major job losses!

Eircom on the otherhand, not being constrained by having to use Irish equipment, uses two very upgradable switching platforms. Ericsson's AXE and Alcatel E10. They're in extremely widespread use world wide and have been in constant development for decades at this stage. From what I understand, moving to a 21CN type network here wouldn't be quite as difficult. It's just a case of adding modules to the switches to make them IP-friendly.

bk

Solair wrote:

The buildings are often enormously bigger than the exchange itself as they would have been occupied by big old electromechanical switches pre 1980s. They had racks and racks of clicking relays.

That was what I'm talking about, you will still need some space, but not as much as the old exchange buildings. I'm specifically thinking of some exchanges around Dublin. I could imagine Eircom selling these to some developer to build apartments on with Eircom getting an agreement to put the exchange in a smaller space in the basement.