VoIP will rule!

medO

British Telecom announced a €15 billion order for broadband kit to replace its antiquated circuit switched phone network. All BT subscribers will be moved, over a period of several years, to VoIP (and related IP services) for voice, internet and TV etc. The traditional telephone exchange will follow the path of the mainframe computer! France Telecom, Tiscali and others started a similar process with their subscribers last year.

The real news is that the order is going to China’s www.huawei.com and France’s www.alcatel.com (rather than one of the traditional BT suppliers like Marconi). While one normally thinks of China as “a factory” for cheap consumer products, VoIP is at the bleeding edge of high technology. Alcatel also employs 6,000 staff in China – most of then engineers working on broadband and related technologies.

Marconi’s shares (ISIN: GB0033354423) were down 38% at the close yesterday and a further 12,25% today. Meanwhile Huawei’s website is swamped with traffic!

medO

GarfieldConnoll

medO wrote:

The real news is that the order is going to China’s www.huawei.com .....

medO

meDO,

Smart use Huawei in the core of the network. It's Huawei MSAPs (multi service access platforms) that we use in eircom's exchanges to offer DSL and voice. Same for customer CPE.

BT's relationship with Huawei is for the same sort of equipment, albeit on a larger scale

Garfield.

causal

BT set out on the switch (pardon the pun) from circuit to packet 5 years or so ago. Originally iirc their plan was to have a 100% packet netwrok within 10 years. They might not reach that target, but it's good to see they're pushing forward.

causal

medO

causal wrote:

BT set out on the switch (pardon the pun) from circuit to packet 5 years or so ago. Originally iirc their plan was to have a 100% packet netwrok within 10 years. They might not reach that target, but it's good to see they're pushing forward.

causal

BT’s biggest problem to overcome will not be IP technology. Much / most of their line plant is antiquated (as in the best part of 100 years old) and in poor shape, and Britain has a very damp climate which doesn’t help. The housing stock is old and there are very few green-field sites where it is cheaper to install fibre and offer a triple play product to everyone who moves into a new development.

BT is stuck with a sub-standard skinny copper “road system” which will limit the bitrate of their offering. This will make it impossible for them to supply HDTV (using say 15 Mbits/sec via MPEG4) and high speed internet + VoIP over the same copper pair to subscribers who don’t live “across the road” from their “exchange”.

In contrast Eircom & co live in a country with the highest new home building rate in Europe, where fibre is the obvious choice to give the homeowner a virtually unlimited number of TV channels, higher internet speed than they could possibly need (up and down!) and VoIP phone, video and fax all from one box. And with the exception of a few initiatives from two eircom competitors, the industry decides to stay in bed and sleep it out!

Ireland needs a Chinese broadband supplier to shake things up!

[I was in a (an?) hypermarket this morning and came across a display of (Chinese) air conditioners for €199. Beautifully designed, high spec., CE mark, remote control, separate dehumidifier and humidifier function, easily removable washable air filters, large matrix display showing status of each function, programmable timer, bla, bla, bla. All it was missing is a little webserver and an RJ45 socket so you could plug it into your router and switch it on over the internet via a browser just before you leave the office! If it was made in Europe or Japan it would cost €700 to €1000].

The writing is on the wall, as they say.

medO