Globalcomm: BT launches global consulting venture

Chicago–BT Wednesday launched a global consulting venture, 21C Global Venture, through which it intends to share the expertise developed in rolling out its next-generation all-IP 21st Century Network, or 21CN, with other network operators and service providers.

Paul Reynolds, CEO of BT Wholesale, said in a Globalcomm interview today that service providers worldwide have taken an interest in 21CN, through which BT is completely revamping its network, spending about $5.6 billion a year to move all of its services onto an end-to-end IP network.

“We are taking the first-mover advantage,” he said. “We will be offering our integration and consulting skills to carriers and enterprises.”

In his keynote address at Globalcomm’s IEC luncheon later Wednesday, Reynolds planned to explain the new venture.

“From research through architecture, design, develop, test, build, deploy and operate, 21CN has been over five years in the making,” he is to say, according to an advance copy of the speech. “No other operator has the wealth and breadth of experience of next-generation transformation, and it is our intention to build on this experience across the globe.”

BT’s experience includes learning how to transform its entire operation, Reynolds said in the interview.

“We faced not just a technology challenge but a human challenge,” he said. “Everybody has been affected, right down to the field engineers and the sales guys. Product managers are learning IP skills. We have been talking to employees right along and doing road shows so they will understand the strategic direction.”

BT’s vendors also have had to make changes. The eight strategic partners–Alcatel, Ciena, Cisco Systems, Ericsson, Fujitsu, Huawei, Lucent Technologies and Siemens–accepted commercial terms under which they get paid only when customer revenue starts flowing into BT’s pockets. Every commercial agreement that BT has, including those with service providers that use BT Wholesale’s network, have been changed.

BT Wholesale will mark a major milestone in November, when it turns up 21CN in its first city--Cardiff, Wales--and everything is on track to do that, Reynolds said.

One key to the process has been maintaining flexibility, Reynolds said. New standards such as IP multimedia subsystem and VDSL2 have come to the market since BT announced its strategy in June 2004, and the company is constantly revising its plans to take into account best-of-breed technology.

“We keep our plans flexible,” Reynolds said. “There are huge challenges in every domain, but we have a huge commitment.”