The entrance of SOGEA connectivity technology in the UK marketplace will provide a fresh opportunity to sell VoIP solutions.
That is according to Paul Beacham, BT Wholesale’s Senior Manager of Data Networking Portfolio, who said the Single Order General Ethernet Access (SOGEA) product from Openreach will be a “key mechanism” in the adoption and application of UC technologies.
Speaking to UC Today, Beacham also said that the introduction of SOGEA would “future proof” businesses before the 2025 switch off of ISDN and PSTN services.
“SOGEA is going to accelerate VoIP adoption and be a key mechanism in terms of supporting UC applications. Clearly, with that 2025 date in mind, customers are thinking of the services that they’ve got on legacy copper-based solutions and they need to think about how they’re going to move those services over.
A significant proportion of the services that are still supported on copper are voice-based services so SOGEA gives businesses the mechanisms to future proof their voice strategy and run UC applications far more efficiently.
What we’re doing on the voice side of the business, with broadband in particular, is looking at how we bring together the broadband connectivity line and the IP voice applications that will run over the top, as well as the UC applications.”
Compensation for FTTP
Beacham went on to say that the SOGEA access solution will be an upgrade for many as the country waits for a full fibre to the premises roll out.
“The challenge that we, as an industry overall have is FTTP coverage because it’s very small at the moment, from a business perspective it’s only about 6-7% business coverage, that’s where FTTC and SOGEA fit in. Even Openreach’s latest plans to roll fibre out to 20 million premises by the late 2020s still means there’s a significant proportion of the country that won’t have FTTP services.
FTTC coverage is over 50% of the UK now, so it is far more relevant from a coverage perspective. BT Wholesale’s strategy is about offering our customers the widest range of Access Solutions and technologies because there’s not a one size fits all solution, and, from a geographic coverage perspective, not everything is available everywhere.
Over time, FTTP is going to become more important alongside, from a business perspective, the traditional fibre access services that we provide. But SOGEA is future proofing businesses from that PSTN and WLR withdrawal, in 2025, and it’s also addressing a significant portion of the UK coverage map that’s not supported by FTTP and won’t be supported over the next few years.”
