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NamePosition

Working together to minimise customer risk on migration to BTs next generation network known as 21CN

Presentation for the Emergency Services

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21CN - Working together

• This presentation is made on behalf of the companies that provide communication services for emergency and other essential services in the UK

• They are BT, Cable and Wireless, Global Crossing and Kingston Communications

• We recognise the importance of working together to minimise customer risk

'Cautionary Statement - The information in this presentation relates to plans is subject to consultation and

may be subject to change.

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21CN - why are we here today?

• To promote awareness of 21CN • To offer reassurance that due care and consideration is being given to managing critical

services on the night of customer transfer• To confirm that as customer transfer approaches detailed local plans will be developed• To look at the impact of transfer to 21CN:

– From the perspective of a member of the public– From the perspective of an emergency service’s control room

• To discuss next steps on actions required• Q&A

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what is 21CN?• 21CN is fundamentally about customer choice;

• It is a world leading software driven customer network and introduces a new, simpler portfolio of next generation services that puts flexibility and choice in the hands of BT’s customers;

• 21CN is the foundation for BT’s transformation into a software driven communications business;

• 21CN is a open platform for innovation by BT, our customers and our partners.

• Customers can access converged communications and cloud services directly through self-service or as fully-managed services;

• Network simplification by collapsing 17 platforms into one global platform;

• It’s an open environment – open systems, standards, APIs and an open philosophy;

• 21CN is made up of a number of inter-dependent programmes

– Converged Core– 21CCE– IT Enablement– Converged Portfolio. Converged

Core

21CCE

IT Enablement

Convergedportfolio

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21CN - what does it mean?

• Involves the transfer of over 30 million lines in more than 5,500 exchange sites over 5 years

• 21CN will carry both today’s and tomorrow’s voice, data, video-on-demand and broadband services on an IP-based network

• Migrations initially will be network led but there is opportunity for Communication Providers to have an element of choice on timings and numbers of lines migrating

• Customer migration is by product set. For example, voice services migrate at different times to broadband services

• Customer migration within an exchange area is random: telephone number sequences are not grouped by street

• This affects *ALL service providers who carry their products and services over BT lines

* If you are connected to a cable service, are a customer of Kingston Communications in East Yorkshire, or do not require a BT line for your phone, broadband or ISDN services, you won't be affected by the rollout of BT's new telecommunications network. In these instances, your current telecommunications arrangements will continue to apply. Mobile services will not be directly affected.

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South Wales Pilot – What’s Happening?

• We did begin pilot activity in South Wales. • It has proved invaluable, including feedback from our CP customers

and their end users. • Feedback secured from end users and CPs, together with other

inputs on changing market dynamics, have helped us to change our approach to 21CN.

• We have re-prioritised from voice to next generation broadband as a result which has commenced in the West Midlands

• We will continue to trial new 21CN products and services with our customers and learn from the resulting feedback.

• The next set of migrations in the South Wales area will take place 17th July 2008

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South Wales Pilot - Defining numbers critical to public safety

• Nominations made by the telecoms industry• Industry reviewed and prioritised nominations - final decision rests with BT Operate• List will be maintained throughout the South Wales Pilot migration period

– 999/112

– 18000 – Text Direct

– Child-line – Non-Geographic

– Number

– Samaritans – Non-Geographic

– Numbers

– 101 Single Non Emergency

– Number

– 1212 Metropolitan police non

– emergency number

– NHS Direct

– NHS 24 (Scotland)

– Transco Gas Leak Reporting

– Number

– Anti-Terrorist Hotline

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South Wales Pilot - What is the impact on the public? • 21CN migration is being managed carefully to minimise the

impact on 999 and other essential life or death services

• For network led migrations there is a public information campaign called ‘switched-on’ that provides background on the process of migration to 21CN. This includes a publicly available website.

• *Every customer and payphone line will have a break in service as they are disconnected from today's network and reconnected to 21CN

• 21CN migration involves technology and data changes. There will be an unavoidable short delay before service is resumed

• The number of necessary service breaks will be kept to a minimum and for the shortest required duration

* If you are connected to a cable service, are a customer of Kingston Communications in East Yorkshire, or do not require a BT line for your phone, broadband or ISDN services, you won't be affected by the rollout of BT's new telecommunications network. In these instances, your current telecommunications arrangements will continue to apply. Mobile services will not be directly affected.

www.switchedonuk.org

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South Wales Pilot - What is the impact on the public? • Engineering activity that impacts on customers’ services can take place 24/7

but wherever possible will take place during the night • Mobile phone services are not affected*• The communication providers will be monitoring the network to ensure there

are no 999 voice calls in progress at the point of transfer• 21CN is not VoIP but 999 calls made over VoIP cannot be monitored• The network, processes, systems, functionality and compatibility will be

rigorously tested before the start of migration• During migration:

– customers will not be able to make or receive calls - including calls to the emergency services

– incoming callers during this period will hear ring tone but no reply – there will be no network announcements

* If you are connected to a cable service, are a customer of Kingston Communications in East Yorkshire, or do not require a BT line for your phone, broadband or ISDN services, you won't be affected by the rollout of BT's new telecommunications network. In these instances, your current telecommunications arrangements will continue to apply. Mobile services will not be directly affected.

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Consumers

& single site SMEs

South Wales Pilot - Clear, consistent communications

• Pan-industry agreed communications programme for consumers and SME end users

Corporates

• Direct briefings by communications providers for corporate end users

– one phone number to call: 0800 030 4000 – one website to visit: www.switchedonuk.org– customised door drops across the UK

– using centrally agreed briefing materials

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End-user voluntary migration

• Move from product X to product Y

• Commercial or operational benefits

• End-users informed by CP

CP Voluntary migration

Network migration & product retirements

• CPs will ask BT to move their end users as they choose to move

• Probably as a result of a pro-active marketing campaign

CP makes the choice to move all or part of its customer base on a

geographic basis

BT specifies the timing (which may be subject to some form of consultation)

CP will determine that they want to offer a particular

service

Voluntary Planned

• Closure of switch or platform = BT sets the date(s) and End users informed via switched-on

• Product retirements = BT sets date of withdrawal from new supply as well as migration windows or “off by” dates & CPs can influence timing within those windows

21CN Migration Definitions

• The information in this presentation for the purposes of discussion. As such it is liable to change

Detailed plans for the above activity are currently under consultation with the Industry

The South Wales Pathfinder area will be a planned migration.

This will be followed by a voluntary approach.

From 2010 the remaining migrations will take place

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South Wales Pilot - What experience tells us

• Changes are made to the network every day: • unnoticed by the vast majority of customers• in many cases the same will apply for 21CN

migration

• Based on previous transfers, assumptions and trialling, we believe the majority of customers lines will be impacted by a small number of service interruptions:

• around 80 per cent of PSTN customers will experience two breaks in service

– Some customers will experience greater and longer breaks in service – but these are exceptions and not the rule

• Transfer methods during the first phase of customer migration will be monitored and processes refined

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Customer Premise Equipment (CPE) compatibility testing

• Testing already completed identifies that the vast majority of customer equipment connected to current telephone lines and broadband services will work normally on the network once it has been switched-on.

• A comprehensive and rigorous testing programme is ongoing.

• The approach taken is to test a representative sample of each type of equipment.

• Where any issues are noted, more exhaustive testing within a category is undertaken.

To view the latest list of tested equipment, visit:

www.switchedonuk.org/corporate/how/compatibility/

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South Wales Pilot - Technical and operational management• On transfer night –

• 21CN migration control centre (MCC) will manage the customer migration processes including monitoring for 999 calls in progress

• This MCC will link into network monitoring and service management operations

• The MCC will issue communications to advise of start and end of ‘on the night’ migration activities to Communication Providers

• There will be a break in service typically for PSTN 3 minutes for outgoing calls and up to 30 minutes for incoming calls

• Established incident procedures come into play in event of unforeseen circumstances, for example, floods or third party cable damage

• It will be possible to revert to the legacy network for up to seven days after migration – however this intervention will only come into play in exceptional circumstances

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South Wales Pilot - Considerations for emergency services

• 21CN migration is a scheduled engineering rearrangement with a similar impact to any other loss of service

• Public access to ‘blue light’ services will be reliant on the use of primary, secondary and alternative routing

• Emergency Authorities need to monitor and understand the impact of change on their internal infrastructure and ability to deploy resources

• Emergency Authorities need to review their own business continuity plans including onward connect numbers

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South Wales Pilot - What does it mean for those

receiving emergency and safety critical calls? • Migration will not be attempted if

emergency/essential calls are in progress• 21CN migration plans already take into account

existing resilience arrangements to protect these services

• Detailed local operational plans will be developed• Migrations impacting on 999 primary, secondary

and alternative routings will not coincide• Priority will be given to migrating blue light control

centres on Tuesday/Wednesday and Wednesday/Thursday nights where possible.

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South Wales Pilot – Next steps

•Your 999 liaison manager will work with you to ensure you have effective plans in place to manage your control room/s through 21CN migration•If these breaks in service affect operations, contingency plans need to be made•Call divert for Incoming traffic (not 999) to another site

•Capacity and staff?•Cannot be changed between 22:00 and 09:00 or until successfully migrated

•Outgoing traffic, an alternate route/technology that is not affected by service breaks

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21CN – National Migration

• New 21CN services being introduced this year include:

– 21CN Ethernet – already introduced and will be available across the widest and most competitive footprint in the UK by April 2009

– 21CN Broadband – already introduced and available from exchanges serving one million UK homes and businesses, rising to 10 million by April 2009

– 21CN integrated voice and broadband – expected to enter beta testing late this year with launch in mid 2009

– These core services will be expandable through a software-driven 21CN innovation platform from mid 2008.

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Key Links

• For general 21CN information on 21CN: www.btplc.com/21CN

• For general information on the process of migration go to: www.switchedonuk.org

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21CN - Key points

• 21CN – UK rollout started in November 2006 and spreads across the UK

• 21CN – The industry is taking customer migration seriously and sensitively managing emergency and critical

services on the night of customer migration

• 21CN – The industry welcomes your input, advice and support

We look forward to working together to successfully deliver 21CN across the UK

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&AQ