Andy Randerson, KCOM’s Wholesale Product Architect, talks about how the forthcoming migration away from PSTN is one of the biggest challenges facing network providers in a century.
Public Switched Telephone Networks, or PSTN to give them their catchy acronym, and their closure is a hot topic in the industry at the moment.
As network providers across the UK draw up plans and grapple with the complexities of replacing their legacy copper networks for a more 21st Century-friendly fibre replacement, there’s no shortage of effort being invested in this once in a lifetime transformation.
KCOM is no exception and, like many others, we’ve a legacy network running in parallel to our award winning full fibre network. In some cases our copper access network was deployed more than 100 years ago and our System X voice and data switches were deployed in the 1980s - which scarily is now four decades ago.
Luckily for us, we’ve deployed a full fibre network across Hull and its surrounding areas during the past 10 years, meaning we can transition from the legacy network and migrate customers onto full fibre easier than in other parts of the UK.
This will also allow a removal of copper as an access method for all customers, faster than other network providers. This puts us in the fortunate position of not having to provide an interim step, of supporting Fibre to the Cabinet (FTTC) technology, prior to Fibre To The Premises (FTTP) roll out. We’re planning to close down our System X and copper access network by 2024.
As a regional provider, although our customer base is smaller, the technical challenges are very similar to those faced by other national network providers.
Careful communication and planning are essential to ensuring successful migration and this has been progressing in earnest for some time behind the scenes.
It’s essential to engage early with vulberable, and typically elderly, customers reliant on their copper phone lines to ensure they maintain connection with their support networks throughout switchover. This includes working with local authorities and umbrella support groups to ensure providers can reach all customers impacted by the changes.
For business end customers KCOM has seen a gradual move to IP services over the last few years and it’s essential this momentum is maintained and encouraged. Business customers through our CP partners use a wide range of products and we’ve embarked on a far reaching ‘discovery phase’ to assess the impact of all-IP migrations to the end business.
As all network providers are no doubt aware – this transformation is a huge challenge fraught with implications for almost every aspect of their customer base.
So the first question perhaps should be – why do it at all? What are the benefits?
Well, as well as providing the best possible end customer experience including faster speeds and a more reliable service, transition to fibre also supports our commitment to reduce the environmental impact of our business and contribute to net-zero. Copper uses far more energy than fibre and is far more likely to fail. Finding replacement parts and the engineers with the skills to fix broken copper networks are also increasingly rare.
There’s much to consider as the industry approaches this huge, era-defining change. There will no doubt be many obstacles along the way but living through arguably an era defining change where one technology gives way to another will certainly make for interesting times ahead.
For more information go to www.kcom.com