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."

Comments

So...

[macshune]

"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."

So they are gonna hook customers up right before the prices go up? I thought prices would go down as time marches on? What about all that "dark fiber"?

Re:The Skype Telephone

[onion2k]

Basically, they are going to spend 3 billion to put themselvs out of business. Great!

Wrong. They've realised that things like Skype will put them out of business if they don't move on, so they're shifting away from traditional voice comms and entirely into data comms. They'll change their pricing accordingly too, probably to a charge based on the amount of data you use rather than an amount of time.

Its the old style voice telcos that are going to be disappearing.