BT Group Newsroom

BT’s Global Fabric goes live with customer traffic

Tue, 25 Feb 2025 08:59:00 +0000

Debut of Global Fabric Internet, the first connectivity service delivered via BT’s new, transformational network-as-a-service (NaaS) platform, Global Fabric.
A growing pipeline of customers, services and features are being added over the coming weeks and months.

BT today announced that customer traffic is now live on Global Fabric, BT’s brand-new network-as-a-service (NaaS) platform for multinational customers.

The announcement marks the debut of Global Fabric Internet, the first service offered from the platform, which delivers a step change in flexibility, visibility and performance of connectivity.

Through the platform’s web portal, customers can view connectivity to their apps, network health, events and alerts. It allows them to make changes to their connectivity in an instant, such as scaling up and down bandwidth, as well as provisioning new connections. This offers customers unprecedented flexibility to achieve the best network performance and accelerate their digital business outcomes.

Thanks to the platform’s brand-new hardware and digital orchestration layer, Global Fabric Internet is available on the same physical port as other connectivity services BT will launch over the coming year. This allows customers to future-proof their connectivity, enabling them to switch between different services with the click of a button and scale up or down instantly rather than in hours, days or weeks.

BT is now adding more customers, scale and features to the platform, such as intent-based routing, building up to the launch of IP VPN and Ethernet connectivity services. These will be offered together with a choice of solutions such as DDoS cyber-security and SD-WAN.

Global Fabric transforms how businesses interconnect with their customers and suppliers securely and reliably across their full digital value chain. It provides people, devices and AIs with the best connectivity to apps and data hosted across multiple clouds.

James Eibisch, Research Director, IDC European Enterprise Communications Services, said: "The disruption and evolution of enterprise IT doesn't stop with digital transformation. The profound growth of AI and the unpredictability of today's geopolitics create uncertainty about how companies should plan and adapt for the future. To cope with this uncertainty, they need flexibility above all, and a platform approach to delivering connectivity and services provides that. BT Global Fabric helps businesses access technology and services in a secure and sovereign manner, wherever it is located and whenever it is needed."

Bas Burger, CEO, Business, BT, said: “Today marks the start of a new era of international business connectivity. Customers are now joining us on a journey to combine the full power of cloud and networks to drive adoption of digital services, such as AI. For BT, it marks a milestone in the delivery of our strategy for customers — to provide rock solid foundations for their digital business plans.”

ENDS

Notes to editors

Global Business Internet

Global Fabric Internet is available in increments of 1 Mbps up to 100 Gbps, burstable, and will provide greater geographical coverage than BT’s previous internet services.

It will be offered with four access points as standard, providing the diversity that underpins Global Fabric’s resilience. It will be connected to two separate PoPs within each major business district (metro area) to further ensure resilience should an individual location fail.

Global Fabric Internet is the first connectivity service available from the Global Fabric NaaS platform. Over the following year, BT will also offer Layer 2 Ethernet and IP VPN connectivity services as well as direct peering with SaaS, SASE and Internet exchanges (IXPs).

Global Fabric platform

Built from three fundamental components, Global Fabric includes a customer web portal, digital orchestration layer and a brand-new network hardware layer deployed across an international footprint spanning the world’s top cloud datacentre locations.

Uniquely, it provides observability of both access and core networks. Access networks link up individual customer locations whereas core networks interconnect central IT systems hosted across multiple clouds. By spanning both, Global Fabric allows customers to achieve the best end-to-end network performance all the way from users and devices in offices, factories and other operational sites, to the multi-cloud core where apps and digital services such as AI are hosted.

Global Fabric is deterministic. This gives customers control over the routes their workloads take as they move between clouds, enabling them not only to achieve the best network cost and performance but meet data sovereignty regulations too as they can ensure workloads remain within geographic boundaries.

Global Fabric will be available to customers internationally via 140 PoPs hosted in the world’s top cloud locations located in 40 countries. It will offer 74 per cent direct coverage of hyperscaler clouds and pre-provisioned high-bandwidth connectivity to over 700 data-centres.

Connecting to Global Fabric PoPs

Global Fabric’s core network hardware is installed in the world’s major carrier neutral facilities (CNFs) — large datacentres where cloud providers, software-as-a-service (SaaS) companies and network operators provide access to their services.

Global Fabric hardware locations are known as ‘points of presence’ (PoPs). BT makes it easy for customers to connect their sites to their business partners, and to their applications and workloads hosted in the multi-cloud, using our PoPs as global connectivity gateways.

Global Fabric and sustainability — key figures

The new high-capacity, fully programmable network’s state-of-the-art equipment offers improvements in efficiency, sustainability and resilience. BT estimates that when fully rolled out, Global Fabric will use 79 per cent less electricity than its current international business networks. This means customers on the new network will be able to reduce their Scope 3 carbon emissions.

Using the Greenhouse Gas Protocol ICT Sector Guidance by Gesi, BT has generated the following estimates:

In use, Global Fabric will consume 8,326 MWh/year versus its existing international networks at 39,890 MWh/year — a 79 per cent reduction.
Use stage gross carbon including PUE will be 2,964 tonCO2e/year for Global Fabric versus 13,596 tonCO2e/year for BT’s existing international networks — a 78 per cent reduction.
Global Fabric’s embodied emissions will be 363 tonCO2e/year versus its existing international networks 2,185 tonCO2e/year — an 83 per cent reduction.
This gives a total carbon in use plus embodied carbon figure of 3,327 for Global Fabric versus its existing international networks at 15,781 tonCO2e/year — a 78 per cent reduction.
BT estimates the average power consumption of Global Fabric will be 787 Watts per device, versus 2,201 Watts per device for its existing international networks.
Moreover, Global Fabric will be built using 1,326 devices versus 1,571 devices — a 16 per cent reduction versus its existing international networks.

BT and Equinix boost interconnectivity for multinational customers

Thu, 20 Feb 2025 09:00:00 +0000

BT’s Global Fabric installed across an international footprint of Equinix data-centres to interconnect customers with their digital value chain

BT and Equinix today announced an expansion of their partnership to help multinational organisations transform interconnectivity across their digital value chain. The move will help customers boost innovation and accelerate business outcomes.

BT’s AI-ready, Global Fabric network-as-a-service (NaaS) platform is now deployed in over 30 Equinix data-centres, growing to over 40 in the next year. This will span the world’s top 30 business locations covering 95 per cent of the world’s cloud interconnection traffic.

It will add to Global Fabric’s international footprint, which BT believes will be one of the largest of any NaaS platform. When fully built-out, Global Fabric will be available to customers internationally via 140 points-of-presence (PoPs) hosted in the world’s top cloud locations across 40 countries. It will offer 74 per cent direct coverage of hyperscaler clouds and pre-provisioned high-bandwidth connectivity to over 700 data-centres.

Global Fabric connects multinational organisations securely, flexibly and reliably. It transforms the ease at which they can deploy and scale interconnectivity with third parties such as customers and suppliers across their full digital value chain.

It provides visibility and control of both access and core networks. This allows organisations to achieve the best end-to-end network performance for their workloads, from users and devices in offices, factories and other operational sites, to the multi-cloud core, which interconnects apps and digital services such as AI. It is built on a fully resilient architecture and offered with a range of management options. With legacy networks, setting up or changing connectivity could take weeks. With Global Fabric, it happens in an instant.

Equinix’s global platform interconnects multiple clouds hosting the apps, solutions and marketplaces underpinning the digital economy. It provides access to approximately 2,000 network services, approximately 3,000 cloud and IT services, over 400 content and digital media services, and more than 4,800 enterprises.

The agreement expands BT’s ability to offer its customers a comprehensive choice of the best locations for their business to digitally interconnect with partners, suppliers, customers and other stakeholders across their full value chain.

It builds on BT Group’s quantum secure communications relationship with Equinix following the joint achievement of the UK’s first data centre to data centre connection using the technology.

According to Equinix’s Global Interconnection Index, digital ecosystems are growing exponentially. Eighty per cent of business-to-business sales interactions are expected to occur in digital channels by the end of 2025. By integrating industry value chains, leading businesses are innovating at a rate 25 per cent higher than their peers.

Arun Dev, Global Interconnections, Equinix, said: “Our partnership enables BT to offer its customers interconnectivity with the full Equinix global digital ecosystem of cloud and IT services, as well as hundreds of content and digital media services, and over 4,800 enterprises hosted at our datacentres globally.”

Matt Swinden, director, digital connectivity, Business, BT, said: "The BT-Equinix partnership is a terrific example of our strategy to build the strongest digital foundations for our customers. Global Fabric combined with Equinix’s global ecosystem of infrastructure, cloud and digital service widens the choice we offer to customers of the best locations to interconnect their full business value chain. It will help make trading, partnering and operating a multinational business, better on BT.”

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About Equinix

Equinix (Nasdaq: EQIX) is the world's digital infrastructure company^®. Digital leaders harness Equinix's trusted platform to bring together and interconnect foundational infrastructure at software speed. Equinix enables organizations to access all the right places, partners and possibilities to scale with agility, speed the launch of digital services, deliver world-class experiences and multiply their value, while supporting their sustainability goals.

Forward-Looking Statements
This press release contains forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. Actual results may differ materially from expectations discussed in such forward-looking statements. Factors that might cause such differences include, but are not limited to, risks to our business and operating results related to the current inflationary environment; foreign currency exchange rate fluctuations; stock price fluctuations; increased costs to procure power and the general volatility in the global energy market; the challenges of acquiring, operating and constructing IBX^® and xScale^® data centers and developing, deploying and delivering Equinix products and solutions; unanticipated costs or difficulties relating to the integration of companies we have acquired or will acquire into Equinix; a failure to receive significant revenues from customers in recently built out or acquired data centers; failure to complete any financing arrangements contemplated from time to time; competition from existing and new competitors; the ability to generate sufficient cash flow or otherwise obtain funds to repay new or outstanding indebtedness; the loss or decline in business from our key customers; risks related to our taxation as a REIT; risks related to regulatory inquiries or litigation and other risks described from time to time in Equinix filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. In particular, see recent and upcoming Equinix quarterly and annual reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, copies of which are available upon request from Equinix. Equinix does not assume any obligation to update the forward-looking information contained in this press release.

BT readies customers for Global Fabric so they can hit the cloud running

Tue, 01 Oct 2024 09:00:00 +0100

BT in live testing of its new, AI-ready network-as-a-service (NaaS) platform
Global Fabric points of presence (PoPs) now installed in over 45 of the world’s major cloud data-centres
Demo of management portal allows customers to experiment with network configurations and APIs in advance of service launch

BT today announced it has switched on Global Fabric, its new, transformative, network-as-a-service (NaaS) platform and has been carrying out extensive live testing over the past two months. The first Global Fabric services will launch in early 2025.

Global Fabric will make it easier and quicker for businesses to securely connect employees, customers and devices to apps and digital services — including artificial intelligence (AI) — that are hosted across multiple clouds.

Customers will benefit from scalable, secure, high-capacity and resilient connectivity, ready to meet the growing and complex demands of breakthrough AI technologies. Global Fabric’s flexibility will be unprecedented. With legacy networks, setting up or making changes to connectivity services can take weeks. With Global Fabric, it happens in an instant, helping businesses manage unpredictable, AI-driven spikes in data traffic.

BT has already installed Global Fabric ‘points of presence’ (PoPs) in over 45 of the world’s major cloud data centres with the number increasing to 140. This offers customers a choice of locations from which to access Global Fabric services to suit their operational, market and regulatory needs.

Customers that do not have network connections into the cloud data centres hosting Global Fabric PoPs will be able to order new links from BT, ensuring they are ready for the launch of live services in early 2025.

BT is also rolling out a demo of Global Fabric’s digital management portal. By November, this will allow customers’ IT teams to learn how to set up and optimise their multi-cloud network configurations and experiment with application programmable interfaces (APIs). APIs will help customers integrate Global Fabric connectivity into other digital business platforms and apps to boost innovation and growth.

“BT’s Global Fabric will help customers hit the cloud running,” said Colin Bannon, chief technology officer, BT Business. “It will give them a choice of the world’s best cloud locations to interconnect with their customers, partners and suppliers, making them easier to do business with not just today but tomorrow too. With the achievement of our latest Global Fabric delivery milestones, we take another step closer to a new age of AI-ready, digital interconnectivity.”

ENDS

Connecting to Global Fabric PoPs