Slashdot Mirror
BT Plans Move To IP Telephony, Starting Next Year
pure_equanimity writes "The BBC have published an article saying that BT are planning to migrate from a PSTN to an IP network, a move to cost 3bn. They say that broadband will become ubiquitous, with customers having the ability to plug any device in to get access. They also say that current cheap broadband products will more than likely not be viable in five years time. They plan to start rolling out in 2006, and cover the vast majority of customers by 2009."
This was the last thing I expected from BT after their faffing about with getting DSL sorted out a few years back. This should be interesting...
Too bad I'm not a BT customer. I wonder what will become of all of the mini-telcos which currently hang off BT's network.
Good Luck with that BT. There are tons of people out there with old rotary phones still, utilizing pulse dialing. They're not going to get some old lady to change her pots phone for some fancy IP phone.
This is a fairy tale dreamt up for investors, and you can expect within 2 years an announcement that it's all much harder than expected.
The UK phone network is not a simple beast, and not like any other phone network in the world. I suspect they're putting down the plan and hoping that they can start angling for some government "investment" to replace the absolute crud we have in place at the moment.
I would advise caution however, when BT announce anything at all. Remember this is the company who announced "universal" broadband 15 years ago and sat on the technology when it became available until they were effectively bullied into it.
But it's a very different thing trying to use VOIP over the internet itself, general public data networks with little by way of service guarantees, and converting a managed telecom backbone network to use IP.
One of these would be extremely good for the UK and very forward thinking, the other would be investing money in a technology already straining to bursting point...
And on another note, how cool will it be to have links like <a href="phonecall:phone.mydomain.com">Phone Me!</a> on websites - how long until we have that I wonder?