In the third quarter of BTs 2014/15 fiscal year, the BT group announced their regular market performance and results update. Within these market updates we normally receive news about what products are doing well and general plans for the future. This network update was no different, but in it was a startling announcement from the CEO of BT Group, Gavin Patterson, that BT are intending to migrate the existing traditional telephony base currently being served by ISDN products, to the IP network by 2025.
BT have already built the core infrastructure that will house the future of telephony and data. In response to growing market demand for data and speed, which is anticipated to continue growing 30% year on year, BTs plans for the future are for a single integrated platform, connecting copper, fibre and mobile telephony.
The roll out of superfast broadband products such as Fibre to the Cabinet and Ethernet connectivity has been a huge success. The market is clamouring for more data products and more convergence of their voice services with their data, such as SIP (the direct ISDN replacement). Businesses want their IT and Voice to work seamlessly together. As an industry leader looking to the future, Datasharp is already there alongside BT providing all the services that our customers need for the future.
In their third quarter announcement, BT took this one step further and announced that they plan to switch off the ISDN network by 2025. There has been speculation in the telecoms industry for some time when this might happen, and now that the network infrastructure is in place, BT have Named the Date. As with the removal of all legacy products, the purpose of the switch off is to simplify the estate and replace old equipment with new.
