AT&T will spend US$3 billion in capital expenditures this year to completely transform its global network from having a voice-based carrier infrastructure into a single Internet Protocol (IP)-based network, the telco said on Wednesday. The project is expected to be completed by 2005.
“In essence our objective is to try to evolve and we are much further along than what is perceived in the industry,” said Hossein Eslambolchi, president of AT&T Labs, chief technology officer (CTO) of AT&T and chief information officer (CIO) of AT&T Business.
Over the summer, AT&T announced a global investment of $500 million this year to improve its worldwide network. In a global teleconference Eslambolchi said AT&T has several major strategic initiatives to build the network as the company evolves its network to an IP optical-based core architecture and continues to consolidate its legacy networks.
Some of the planned initiatives include moving the optics into the edges of the network from beyond the core, moving from a circuit-based network to packets, having edge-to-edge connectivity, and becoming completely automated.
AT&T plans to retire 270 legacy systems across the world by the end of 2005. Approximately 130 legacy systems were retired over the past 18 months, with another 140 systems slated for phase out over the next two years.
