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BT Takes its NGN Strategy for a Walkabout

TelecomTV reports that BT Asia Pacific President Allen Ma revealed at the CommsDay Summit that he will use a meeting with Australia's communications minister Helen Coonan to evangelize the British approach to next-generation network development. He said that BT was pitching its efforts in the UK as world's-best practice and a potential blueprint for NGN development across the globe.

With the final supply contracts now signed, BT is charging ahead with its 21st Century Network migration in the UK, a massive $19 billion project hoped to see 100 per cent of UK homes and business connected over an all-IP infrastructure by 2010.

While precluded due to a Telstra sales agreement from commenting directly on the company, Ma says there is little doubt that persistent regulatory uncertainty is delaying the implementation of a NGN infrastructure in Australia, something that has a real potential to impact the country's social and economic wealth. "I think your regulator should really pay attention and so should the management team in Telstra. They should think not so much about their company but about the society and the economy of Australia," Ma said.

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