BT gets Highway ready for masses

BT gets Highway ready for masses
Richard Wilson BT has set itself the target of connecting ISDN digital telephone lines to almost two million homes in the next five years. To achieve what would be a seven-fold increase in the existing number of ISDN lines, BT has launched its first ISDN service priced for a mass-market take-up. Called BT Home Highway, the service has been designed to make it easier and cheaper for home users to connect their telephones and PCs to an ISDN line in their home. According to Afshin Mohebbi, managing director of BT’s Business Division, the phone company is targeting an estimated six million PC-owning UK households. “Only 1.8 million homes have Internet access,” said Mohebbi. “We expect BT Highway for every household within five years.” He claims that BT has made sufficient commitment to meet this level of demand. Take-up of ISDN services in the UK has been slow due in part to prohibitive pricing. BT hopes the pricing of the new service – a one-off ?116 charge to upgrade an existing analogue phone line followed by a ?40 monthly line rental. Marconi Communications and Ericsson are providing the necessary hardware and software required in BT’s exchanges and in user homes. Wall-mounted network terminators, provided by Marconi Communications and Ericsson, connect to the existing phone master socket. The 2 x 64kbit/s channel ISDN technology employed operates over the existing copper telephone lines and has a range of 3km.


Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

*