BT's plan to move 350,000 customer lines in South Wales
on to its21st Century Network (21CN)by 2007
has fallen short of BTs expectations, it was claimed this
week.
It is believed that fewer than 10,000 lines in the South Wales
area have migrated on to the combined IP network.
BT expected 350,000 customer lines to be moved on to the network
by summer 2007 when it announced the first customer migration would
take place in South Wales back in November 2006.
The telco said that it had changed its strategy to prioritise
delivering more advanced services such as Ethernet and ADSL2+
broadband to current users on the network earlier, rather than
getting more customers on the network running standard
services.
Next-generation networks such as BT's 21CN aim to deliver
multiple services including voice, data and multimedia with
guaranteed level of quality over one IP network.
A BT spokesman confirmed that 10% of current customers on 21CN
in the South Wales area are business users, who will use the
network to get
faster broadband.
Research from the Communications Management Association, which
represents network managers in business, showed that more than half
of the CMA's 353 survey respondents (58%) said that their
businesses could not get the broadband they needed and ranked BT's
roll-out of 21CN as a priority for delivering fast access.
BT plans to debut its ADSL2+ broadband service on the network at
the end of month and will continue with roll-outs to reach the
whole of the UK by 2011.