BT to complete 21CN in Northern Ireland

Link: BT to complete 21CN in Northern Ireland
Filed under: Telecoms News, Broadband News, VoIP News, Companies News, Technology News, IPTV News, Internet News

BT will complete Northern Irelands’s £260m next-generation broadband network - known as 21st Century Network or 21CN - in 2010, making it the first region in the UK to benefit from the service.

BT will roll 21CN out across the UK, providing a platform for high-bandwidth services, including IPTV. It will cost a total of £10bn and is expected to be fully completed in 2011. The system is expected to triple the speed of broadband access.

The roll out has already started in southeast Wales, and will commence in all UK regions by 2008. Northern Ireland will be the first region to have a complete network as the region has only 160 telephone exchanges to link up, out of roughly 6,000 across the UK. These will converge in three major hubs - in Belfast, Portadown and County Armagh.

21CN will power all of BT’s telephone, broadband and ISDN services and is expected to enable the company to deliver communications services that will meet its customers’ needs for many years to come.