BT trials ECI FTTP gear

British Telecom will use access equipment from Israel-based ECI Telecom for a fiber-to-the-premises (or, as it’s called in the United Kingdom, "fibre-to-the-premises") trial to be conducted this fall.

The trial, which will go live in October 2004, will deliver FTTP service to 3000 homes and more than 100 businesses using ECI’s Hi-FOCuS 4 access gateways.

The trial is part of BT’s "21st Century Network" program, in which the carrier will spend 3 billion pounds per year converting the majority of its traditional telephony customers to IP telephony customers by 2008. That initiative is separate from BT’s FTTP trial, however.

BT has made no definitive plans for a FTTP rollout, but it is using the trial as a way to "test the technical and commercial issues associated with the possible deployment of [FTTP]," the company said in a statement issued yesterday.

"Contracts for the main rollout phases will be awarded following a formal competitive tendering process which will be concluded by the end of 2004," BT said.