BT pledge a billion for 21st Century Scotland

Scotland is not being left behind in BT’s network overhaul, with the announcement that the telecommunications company will be investing £1 billion over the next five years.

As part of the 21st Century Network (21CN) programme, equipment in more than 1000 Scottish exchanges will be replaced with hardware that routes data and voice over the internet. According to BT, the investment will further enable Scotland to compete on an international scale as advanced communications will be critical to innovation and competitive advantage. BT's £1 billion investment over five years equates to £1.6 million per month or £54,794 a day in communications technology across Scotland.

In BT-speak their radical reform of the UK’s communications backbone is designed to remove duplication across the “existing multiple networks and systems to create a single, converged multi-service internet protocol (IP) based network.” Cynics might say part of the rationale is to blur the present boundaries of voice and data traffic and protect BT’s line rental income.

That said, there will be a host of interesting new party tricks to allow customers to customise, personalize and manage a growing range of advanced new services in real time including multimedia information and entertainment services to static and mobile devices. The greater ability to converge ‘fixed line’ and mobile will also mean one handset does both jobs.

Paul Reynolds, CEO of BT Wholesale and the BT Board member responsible for the programme, said: “21CN will create enormous opportunities for Scotland - both economic and social. It is a key infrastructure that will fuel the Scottish economy and provide a flexible way for people to use new services. And the support of the Executive means that we can bring these benefits to all of the Scottish people - whether they are from the city centres of Glasgow and Edinburgh or more remote locations in the Highlands and Islands.”