BT is planning to spend a further £1bn on its roll-out of fast broadband services to two-thirds of UK households by 2015 and has said its systems supplier, Huawei is to provide access products to support the roll-out of its planned national fibre network “subject to an acceptable environment for investment.”

“BT and Huawei have had a strong relationship for several years," said Steve Robertson, (left) CEO of BT’s Openreach division.  
"We are pleased to extend this further by choosing Huawei as one of our strategic partners to help us deploy next-generation access on a national scale as part of BT’s £2.5bn investment in fibre technology,”

"We are proud to contribute to the construction of BT’s pan-UK fibre deployment," said Chengdong Yu, (right) president of Huawei Europe. “We will apply our experience to collaborate with BT in achieving its strategic goals and bringing super-fast broadband to the UK."



BT and Huawei started FTTx deployment in 2008 resulting in the launch of FTTC superfast broadband services this year.

Abica plays interface expansion
Abica is using the multi billion pound upgrade in the UK’s telephone exchange network over the next 12 months to offer cost savings for businesses and provide them with enhanced telecoms capability.
 
Many businesses pay anything from £7k-£18k pa for dedicated fibre optic connection to their premises, as internet speeds improvement and resulting productivity is so significant. But once the upgrade to the telephone network is complete, Abica claims it will be able to provide customers with access to these substantially-enhanced services for as little as £600 a year.
 
To connect to the new fibre optic cables currently being laid, individual businesses will only need to acquire a new router that can be fitted in a matter of hours by a qualified technician, to be able to enjoy the benefits of Abica fibre to the cabinet (FTTC) product.
 
In short, FTTC call charges will be about 70% lower than those transmitted over older copper wiring, delivering similarly impressive improvements for internet use, boosting existing download speeds by a factor of 8 and upload speeds by a factor of 12.
 
FTTCenables video to be transmitted, superior broadband capability will enable businesses both to access and provide services more effectively over the internet.  Because data sent through this channel it is prioritised over other traffic, call quality is consistent and dramatically better than other consumer offerings available.
 
As the fibre optic upgrade is carried out across the telephone network, businesses can follow its progress and find out exactly when they can access new services from Abica’s website.

By switching to FTTC, smaller companies will immediately begin to access the sort of integrated and flexible approach to telecoms that has hitherto only been available to their larger competitors. 
 
David Munro, (left) joint MD at Glasgow-based Abica, said: “FTTC is a real game changer. It introduces better service and reduces costs immediately. It also opens up the potential for businesses to dramatically extend the functionality of their existing telecoms set up.
 
“Beyond FTTC, as Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP) telephony becomes the standard, and people start routing all of their telephone calls over the internet, even greater benefits will begin to flow which will enable companies to increase and reduce the number of telephone lines they have without the need for costly installation work.
 
“Where a business moves premises, for example, it will be able to plug into the internet at the new location and immediately access its entire telecoms set up and functionality while retaining all of the same numbers”, he said.

Google goes voiceover (but not in Scotland)
ComputeScotland (left)  was suprised to find a bright green phone on its GoogleMail inbox, which on being clicked suggested by downloading software it would  offer not just voice and video chat but over a mobile or fixed line (right) putting itself into direct competition with Skype not to mention main telecommunications suppliers.

It would also intriguingly embed Google as an integrated part of the social interaction scene, uniting the service for phone calls with e-mail, text messages and video chats. Google has also gone on record that the new service will work well for people in a spot with poor cellphone reception or for those making a quick call from their desk.

Alas, the green phone, not acted on immediately perhaps, decided to sulk and vanished from Compute Scotland inmail box. Google now declares  the service is not available in the UK at present, so its not in Scotland either.

In the US after Gmail users install the voice and video chat plug-in to their browsers, they can make a call using their computer’s microphone and speakers or a headset. Calls to numbers in the US and Canada will be free at least to the end of the year. International call charges are listed.

Skype lets people call phone numbers in the US and Canada for 2.1c/minute or unlimited calls for $3 a month. For $14/month, Skype users can make unlimited calls to people in 40 countries. Skype is filing for an initial public offering of stock with the Securities and Exchange Commission.  It has an average 124m users a month worldwide, according to the filing, of which 8.1m pay for the service to call mobile phones and landlines.

Google does not say how many people use Gmail, but analysts reckon it to have some 200m users. The Google blog about its voice service is here.