BT Group: Reversing a Victorian Tradition 10 comments
-
Font Size:
-
Print
- TweetThis
There is one exception to my stereotype. British Telecom’s (BT) 21st Century [21CN] initiative. No Victorian Bric-a-Brac crap here.
I’ve spent some time ripping apart BT21CN in order to understand the short and long term impact on the telecom equipment and component supply chain. So far, I really like what I see.
There is a ton of information on 21CN in the public domain. BT has stated transparency is an important characteristic of this initiative, and it shows. The 21CN website is a good place to start.
MSAN - King of the Ring
Most impressive is BT’s commitment to take all voice and data services at the edge and homogenize them into IP and Ethernet. The star of the show is the MSAN (MultiService Access Node), a DSLAM-on-steroids. All protocol complexity is pushed to the extreme edge of the network and collapsed into the MSAN, which feeds an Ethernet and IP core.
Every voice line is converted to VoIP right where the copper pair is terminated. All 30 million of them. DSL services are provided from the same linecard. BT is using these systems to rollout ADSL2+ to 95% of households nationwide. There’s no separate DSLAM, POTS termination, SONET/SDH Add Drop Mux. MSAN collapses all.
Fractional TDM based Frame Relay and IP services (500k lines!) are packetized and bundled right at the POP. If it isn’t TDM leased line (E1 or bigger), it gets packetized and sent through the core using MPLS. BT has indicated that support for fractional rate leased lines after 2012 is questionable.
The Major Players
Fujitsu (FJTSY) and Huawei provide the MSAN boxes that sit at the edge of the network and act as the bridge between legacy services and an all-IP core, while providing robust support for transporting legacy TDM containers. This is a 40% share of project capex, or $2.8 Billion Dollars.
Speculation was rife several weeks ago that Huawei had lost its MSAN contract. I’ve subsequently learned that it is the optical transport contract that Huawei is struggling to keep. Ciena (CIEN) and Huawei are providing the optical transport equipment though multiple sources have informed me that Ciena is capturing a greater share due to problems with Huawei. This was a shock to me, as I have long expected and written about how Huawei will meet initial success in western networks through it’s optical transport equipment. Regardless, I expect the optical transport portion of the contract to be the least important in both strategic and dollar terms. In the near term, BT is bootstrapping all of their old transport equipment and not buying a great deal of new kit.
Cisco (CSCO), Lucent/Alcatel (ALA), Siemens (SI), Juniper (JNPR), and most recently Nortel (NT) supply a motley assortment of switching and routing gear. The picture is murky but it appears to me that, as usual, Cisco wins and everyone else is invited to ensure a decent hand of poker.
Much attention is focused on all the vendors named in the 21CN contract, but the reality is one MSAN vendor is likely to capture at least 1/3 of total capex. It will either be Fujitsu or Huawei. If you have an opinion, please do share.
The Death of TDM Access
Going forward, TDM as an enterprise access technology is over in the UK. BT announced a new contract win with ADVA [ADVOF.PK] to deploy Ethernet demarcation boxes using a multitude of backhaul technologies, mostly fiber and mid-band Ethernet. This is part of their push to roll out Ethernet services.
This is a really big deal. Instead of forcing another copper TDM connection down the throats of their customers (you thought English food was bad) BT will be offering carrier grade Ethernet connectivity, fiber based in some cases.
Anyone betting on Ethernet over PDH or any native TDM as customer connectivity should be concerned. All legacy TDM based Frame Relay and PPP protocols are homogenized into IP right in the MSAN. New customers will be receiving Adva boxes using copper or fiber based Ethernet. It’s safe to assume those E1 lines used for voice will vaporize sometime shortly after.
TDM based optical transport (i.e. SONET/SDH or Ethernet over SONET/SDH) is still used throughout the network to transport both legacy TDM leased lines and IP services.
It is notable that even with a network as radically advanced as BT’s, SONET/SDH still plays a central role, Ethernet over SONET/SDH in particular. Take that, evil anti-SONET Sith Lords. I will fight you to the last.
VoIP 2.0
The other notable characteristic of BT’s architecture is they chose not to rely on TDM to VoIP conversion while using legacy copper TDM termination equipment. This choice, if a trend for other carriers, is death for companies like Sonus Networks (SONS), who provides a solution that bootstraps existing TDM investments. The drawback to their solution is they end up adding more equipment and complexity rather than reducing it.
BT embeds the VoIP functionality right into the MSAN, and does the conversion as close to the customer as possible. This has the effect of reducing, not increasing network elements and is the only long term method for driving down operational costs.
As carriers aggressively deploy low-cost DSL and DSL penetration increases, the MSAN model makes more and more sense. There won’t be legacy TDM connections for Sonus to convert as the edge equipment itself will incorporate this function.
I believe companies like Acme Packet (APKT) are better representative of the long term future of VoIP and other connection based services yet to be invented. Once VoIP is a pervasive service, the growth will be in managing and securing the connections successfully, not converting legacy TDM connections.
Conclusion? Sonus = Carrier VoIP 1.0, Acme Packet = Carrier VoIP 2.0.
Summary
The Victorian age of Telecom is nearing an end, with its assortment of bric-a-brac equipment destined for retirement.
BT 21CN is a sleeker, flatter, radically modernistic alternative these Victorian networks of old. If successful, Tech historians will draw parallels between Victorian interior design of the 19th century and Telco Central Offices of the 20th century. More Gropius. Less Cruft.
Disclosure: Author is long Acme Packet.
BT 1-yr chart
Related Articles
|
Find People on SA
-
The Seeking Alpha 100
See allThe top 100 stock
market authors
selected for publication
Seeking Alpha 100 » -
Fastest Climbers
Authors with the largest
increase in followers
in the last 7 days-
1
David Fry
-
2
Bill Gross
-
3
TraderMark
-
4
Peter Schiff
-
5
Serge Hagopian
Fastest Climbers » -
1
-
Top Commenters
Top commenters,See all
as ranked by their peers
Top Commenters » -
Top Instabloggers
The 100 most activeSee all
Instabloggers.
Top Instabloggers » -
Top StockTalkers
TopSee all
StockTalkers.
Top StockTalkers »
This article has 10 comments:
FYI, Sonus is the ONLY major carrier class VOIP solution provider (not excluding APKT's and their SBCs) whose VOIP solutions are NOT tied to TDM investments. Is in fact just the opposite. NT, LU, SI, etc are the major vendors whose solutions are hybrid/bolt-on TDM solutions for VOIP. Sonus' ... well just are not. That simple.
Not saying that this means APKT won't do well, b/c they probably will. But trying to put APKT in a good light by comparing it to a TDM tied VOIP solution ... and using Sonus for that comparison is just simply wrong. Period. It is like I said, just the opposite. Sonus' solutions are all SIP and ALL IP meant to totally REPLACE the TDM solution. The only reason why Sonus' solutions haven't done better over the last few years b/c the primary deployments were indeed solutions by NT, etc which indeed tied directly to the TDM investments, where Sonus' solutions completely remove the TDM investment.
It is literally the exact opposite of the author's basis for the entire comparison between SONS and APKT.
It really makes the entire article questionable.
End to end all IP just hasn't been adapted en masse yet. And I think that is what the author is trying to say about APKT, b/c as the networks evolve the need for SBCs will go up and APKT will probably see higher demand for that as carriers shy away from TDM.
The reason why Sonus has sold mostly "TDM-tied" gateways is b/c most of the initial transitions to VOIP have been either TDM hybrids, mostly for the cable industry, and core deployments. And core deployments in a TDM network are by definition TDM tied. But the reason for that is major carriers have yet to do VOIP access, so to expect high ALL IP VOIP equipment sales to date is a little niave. But nevermind the fact that the only major NON-TDM VOIP deployments in the entire world have been Sonus.
But again b/c Sonus has had a high % of sales of gateways doesn't mean that Sonus is "tied" to TDM. Sonus softswitch architecture is based on an all IP, SIP based, "TDMless" evolution of the networks. The thing that I think the author might have a rif against Sonus about is b/c Sonus actually has a NBS (Network Border Switch) which incorporates what an SBC does an then some ... essentially negating the need for a separate SBC switch from a company like APKT.
Bottom line, no matter which way you cut it the statements in this article implicates that at best the author doesn't know much about Sonus networks. But since Sonus networks is looking to be a major VOIP player, that then does raise the question on the validity of the entire article and knowledge base of the author to comment on the industry, in my humble opinon.
www.sonusnet.com/conte...
"Based on Sonus Networks' market-leading GSX9000 platform, NBS is the only carrier-class solution that provides IP-to-IP border control and PSTN media gateway capabilities – integrating security, session control and media control.
This integrated approach allows carriers to protect their investment as network traffic evolves from purely TDM to a mixture of TDM and IP, to purely IP-based"
When Sonus starts selling large quantities of other equipment I'll change my mind. Until then I'll stand by my assertions.
Please name one carrier using Sonus as a true SBC, providing transcoding and security at the NNI.
>>
;)
Vikram Saksena, Sonus Networks CTO, @Raymond James, 3/5/07
“In Europe operators are using the existing unbundled copper loops ..Our customers such as Deutsche Telekom, Carphone Warehouse and Cable and Wireless basically went down the path of Deploying a product called MSAN, which basically ties back to the copper loop and then using Sonus as the softswitching platform and PSTN and breakout platform for connecting into a MSAN type architecture. **Now, this is going to spread in most of the large carriers in Europe because everyone is on this path and we feel there is a huge opportunity in front of us to take the lead in this space of access voip services."**