Collocation

Written on 4:13 PM by ooe

Collocation is considered to be one of the most important services in LLU. LLU operators must place equipment close to the MDF to which they wish to connect. There are three broad types of collocation which are physical collocation where the operator rents space inside the local exchange building, distant location where the operator's equipment is housed in a nearby building or street cabinet and cageless collocation where equipment belonging to the LLU operator is located in the same room as that of the network owner.

In the UK, BT has more than five thousand local exchange buildings and these were never designed or intended for third-party access. When designing collocation products BT studied the similar products offered by other incumbent operators in the USA and continental Europe and adopted the best practices from these operators.

The introduction of collocation requires that standards for equipment and operations be agreed. In the UK the standards for equipment and the inter operator processes for collocation were developed and trialled by BT and representatives of the LLU operators in a sub group of the Operator Policy Forum during 2000.

A key aim of the product design was to minimise the need for equipment specifically for designed or modified for LLU and wherever possible off the shelf hardware was used to minimise supply chain bottlenecks. Statutory requirements and customer affecting considerations such as safety, fire detection, planning law, security and risk management all had to be satisfied. In addition, BT's operating licence places it under an obligation to secure its network equipment.

The first collocation rooms and distant location facilities were completed in December 2000. At the completion of the collocation trial BT was well placed to design and build substantial volumes of collocation facilities in response to firm orders placed by LLU operators.