T-Mobile UK Signs Backhaul Contract with British Telecom

T-Mobile UK and BT Wholesale have signed an agreement that sees BT (the dominant landline provider in the UK) link thousands of T-Mobile's base station sites around the UK to the T-Mobile network. The contract is potentially worth several hundred million pounds over the next five years.

BT will connect thousands of T-Mobile's base stations around the UK to the central T-Mobile network. Leased lines will be used to connect these sites at first before an Ethernet-based service is introduced.

The new Ethernet service will further enhance the delivery of access and backhaul services to T-Mobile. It will be designed and built to be fully compatible with BT's 21st Century Network (21CN). The service will also provide T-Mobile with the network capacity required to support future bandwidth hungry mobile services based on HSDPA technology.

T-Mobile has selected the managed network solution from BT as an alternative to building its own radio access transmission network, allowing it to benefit from reduced risk and reductions in capital and operational expenditure.

Emin Gurdenli, Technology Director, T-Mobile said, "By partnering with BT, we are able to achieve cost savings and focus on our core business while BT takes care of our access backhaul requirements. This approach also means that we have the opportunity to control our future cost base more in line with business performance. Another winning factor for BT was that the promise of 21CN Ethernet development allows us to plan our future network requirements allowing for extra capacity and supporting T-Mobile's development of new next generation services for our customers."

Posted to the site on 19th July 2007