Alcatel-Lucent To Boost BT Bandwidth

BT has signed a five-year deal with telecoms equipment maker Alcatel-Lucent to use the company’s architecture as the backbone of its “21st Century Network” (21CN).

Alcatel’s technology will be used to speed up and boost the bandwidth capacity of BT’s next generation IP network. The increased bandwidth will help the company to consolidate O2 UK’s mobile and fixed networks – as part of a multi-million pound managed services agreement signed earlier this year – as well as enabling BT to introduce new video-rich services.

“21CN is a huge transformational programme. It’s about providing a network for the future which requires a game-changing approach.” said George Nazi, managing director of BT 21CN core convergence, in a statement. “Alcatel-Lucent came up with an innovative solution that will help us keep 21CN at the forefront of innovation and radical change.”

Scalable bandwidth

Alcatel-Lucent’s High Leverage Network (HLN) delivers scalable bandwidth, providing BT with an end-to-end transport solution to manage the rapid growth in network traffic, while simultaneously cutting operational and maintenance costs. With consumption of video-rich content increasing, both on mobile networks and via fixed-line broadband, BT will benefit from this new business model, Alcatel said in a statement.

In March last year, BT announced its iVPN service – based around the company’s 21st Century Network – which it claimed would improve efficiency by giving firms the ability to prioritise traffic over their IT network.

According to Sandra O´Boyle, research director at IT analysts Current Analysis, services such as BT’s iVPN system could have more cost benefits that managing networks purely internally. “For customers this translates into tangible benefits such as more accurate billing, faster provisioning times and resolution of any site performance issues,” she said.