The Future of Telecom is in Wales

An anonymous reader wrote to mention a CNN Money story about the future of U.K. telecommunications. British Telecom is planning on rolling out an $18 Billion new system in 2010, and the first location to get the hook up is Cardiff, in Wales. From the article: "What's really cool about what will happen in Cardiff - and eventually the rest of the U.K. - is that BT is creating an open, standards-based platform for which anyone can develop new applications. In other words, the phone has the potential to become more like the Internet with its proliferation of cool new Web sites, tools and services."

Comments

Re:Oh no you don't BT!

[gpuk]

BT is a huge corporation. You need to make a distinction between their various retail arms and their network/infrastructure arm.

BT retail is appaulingly bad and the criticisms you make are all valid.

However, the network/infrastructure arm of BT is among the best in the world.

Thanks to BT:
1). The UK enjoys 99% ADSL coverage
2). The UK has the deapest ADSL penetration in Europe (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/01/03/broadband _france_uk/)
3). Thanks to the recent successfull rollout of MAX DSL you can now get up to 8MB down and 480KB up
4). We have some of the most competative ADSL pricing in Europe
5). There are a huge array of different ISPs and packages available on the market (http://www.adslguide.org.uk)
6). They are no longer a monoply which is why you can get ADSL for GBP£10/mnth or you can get ADSL for GBP £70 month depending on what you want and who you want to provide it.
7). We are approaching over 500,000 unbundled lines (LLU) which puts us second place in Europe for LLU

The Cardiff initiative is nothing to do with BT Retail. It is BT's next generation infrastructure trial and from what I have read this new platform will ensure the underlying BT network remains one of the most advanced and reliable in the world, with all the benefits this will bring.