Consult21 Working Group Updates

Systems & Processes Working Group

At the October Working Group, we had a demonstration of new Dialogue Services available for some Openreach products and paid particular attention to ‘Address Matching’. Due to the level of interest in this new type of synchronous transaction, the group have decided to form an Experts Group to consider how Industry would like to improve this service as well as widen its application, potentially to additional products.

The Co-Chairs, Graham Crane (BT) and Geoff Izzard (NTL:Telewest), jointly presented the results of a recent Experts Group discussing the division of work between the Consult21 Working Group, the NICC B2B Group and other industry forums. They concluded with a proposal to move the Consult21 Working Group to meet quarterly to review the systems roadmap for 21CN ‘obligatory products’ (from BT Wholesale and Openreach) and review the progress all Communication Providers (CPs) were making implementing the new standards being developed at the NICC B2B Group. The NICC B2B Group will meet monthly, to develop standards and best practice to meet CP’s automated interface system and process requirements for the emerging ‘eMarket’ for multi-service, multi-supplier ‘triple/quad play’ services.

The consultation on the 2nd Issue of Systems Roadmap has now concluded, with industry responses gathered and replied to.

If you would like more information on this working group and its activities please contact tim.short@bt.com

Network Hooks & Common Capabilities Working Group

This working group has been closed. The first of new regular forums has been held by BT Wholesale Products (22 September) where new 21CN based products are presented and the Common Capabilities underpinning them discussed. These sessions will be key in establishing communication between BT Wholesale and CPs at an earlier stage of the development process, enabled by greater visibility of BT Wholesale’s Capability and Product roadmaps. For more information, please contact your Client Manager.

The Network Hooks part of this Working Group has been accepted as a work package by NGNuk, the new Industry Body considering commercial aspects of Next Generation Networks in the UK. For more information, please see www.ngnuk.org.uk/

If you would like more information on this area, please contact tim.short@bt.com

Network Structure Working Group

Work is concentrating on producing a white paper on the technical aspects of Next Generation Network (NGN) Voice Interconnect and on the network inventory information that is needed by CPs to help them plan their investments. The next working group meeting will be on 26 October.

For further information, please contact owen.gardner@bt.com

Broadband Working Group

The consultations on Wholesale Broadband Connect (w-BBC, BT’s 21CN broadband offering) as well as on existing plans for IPstream and Datastream have concluded, with industry responses gathered.

If you would like more information on this working group, please contact tom.saville@bt.com

Point-to-Point Working Group

The WES consultations have now concluded and industry responses have been gathered. The key discussion item of telemetry circuits continues.

For further information, please contact tom.saville@bt.com

Line Access Working Group

Work continues in defining the Voice Line Access product ahead of a 6 November relaunch event to be hosted by openreach.

The ISDN30 product migration plans are to be reset, with further details available soon.

If you would like more information on this working group, please contact tom.saville@bt.com

Interconnect & Portfolio Working Group

An agreement has been reached to adopt a blended rate charging option for the PSTN emulation product. Work will now progress in defining the details of the product to enable an early launch window to be achieved.

The group welcomes Jim Moulder from Global Crossing as the new industry co-chair.

For further information, please contact chris.evans@bt.com

Conformance Testing Working Group

Work continues on the testing programme of CPE, core products and service interoperability, whilst this activity remains on the critical path much progress is being made.

If you would like more information on this working group, please contact liz.e.walsh@bt.com

Implementation & Migration Working Group

The main focus for this group is the countdown to Pathfinder, with work progressing on establishing the detailed activities needed to enable switchover to commence.  

A number of workshops have been held in recent weeks with internal and external representatives, focusing on customer experience and Transfer Engineering (TE) service and process impacts. All the relevant issues have been captured and are being progressed, with resolutions factored into updates of the TE technical briefing documents.

Multilateral customer experience workshop dates have been set and a number of bilateral sessions already held. However CPs are encouraged to request workshops, where they can better understand their end-user customer experience, using the format set out in briefing document C21-IM-017.

The TE Impact matrix details pre, post and on the night migration activity and sets out the current position on service breaks, outages, freezes and timing impacts. It also includes network features and harmonisation details and will be updated throughout the trials and testing life cycle. The current issue is available on the Consult21 web link TEImpact Matrix CP Issue 1.1

The next working group is 7 October.

If you would like more information on this work area, please contact liz.e.walsh@bt.com

End-User Migration Communications Working Group

Please see elsewhere in this bulletin for a further communications update article. If you would like more information on this work area, please contact andy.rudman@bt.com