BT Research

BT Research

Formation	1921
Type	Former government-owned body, now private research organisation
Purpose	Telecommunications research
Location	Adastral Park,Martlesham,Suffolk, IP5 3RE
Parent organization	BT Group
Website	https:// bt /about/bt/research-and-development

BT Researchis the research arm ofBT Group,formerly part of the British Post Office. The company was first established in 1921 as the Post Office Research Station at Dollis Hill, London. In 1968 BT moved of its research to the new site at Martlesham Heath based on part of the old Royal Air Force Station at Martlesham Heath near Ipswich in the English county of Suffolk, which was later renamedAdastral Park.

Location

Adastral Park

BT's main research facility is located in the United Kingdom atAdastral Park,nearIpswichin the county of Suffolk. The Adastral Park site was first planned around 1968 as the Martlesham Heath Post Office Laboratoriesand after completion in 1971 has grown since then to a facility today which has around 4,000 research and development people from both BT and some of its partner companies. Globally, BT has additional research labs in Beijing, Boston MA and Abu Dhabi. The focus of research at BT is Information and Communications Technology (ICT).

TheRoyal Air Forcewere the original residents of the site in Suffolk atRAF Martlesham Heath.Experimental aircraft test flights flew from the airfield and the name (Adastral Park) is intended to reflect the history of experimentation and innovation, which is the continuing focus for the Park.The initial models and plans created by the MPBW [successor to the MOW] would appear to indicate the influence of the Thunderbirds TV series of the 1960s.

Activities

Current research themes

Major theme areas are;

• IT services, software and systems
• Internet of Things (IoT)
• Big data
• Future of the Internet and network transformation
• Mobility and convergence
• Future of the Web andsemantic intelligence
• Information and security systems
• Customer service and systems
• The digital home and sociable communications

Academic research partners

BT works closely with both academics and students in over 20 institutions globally and has strong partnerships with theUniversity of Cambridgein the UK, theMassachusetts Institute of Technology(MIT) in the USA andTsinghua Universityin China. BT also leads the India-UK Advanced Technology Centre, a consortium of 22 Indian and UK industry and academic partners conducting research into current and next generation fixed and wireless communications.

History

Main building

Research in the company was first established in 1921 at thePost Office Research StationatDollis Hill,London. In 1968 BT began the move of its research to the new site atMartlesham Heathin Suffolk. By late 1969 small teams of researchers were working at Martlesham. The first new research building was formally opened on 21 November 1975 by QueenElizabeth II of the United Kingdom.The architect was Mr Stanislaw Spielrein ARIBA of the Ministry of Public Buildings and Works [MPBW].The new building housed 1,700 people.

Patents

By the turn of the twentieth century, the site had produced over 10,000 patents.

Innovations from BT Research

2006 [October] – BT implemented the world's first fully automated 'spam buster' system to track down and tackle professional spammers and 'botnet' infected customers on the BT broadband network.

2002 [June] – Research and development teams designed and deployed a suite of new business systems allowing the launch of the UK's first commercial broadband internet access service.

1999 [July] – BT announced that it had pushed commercial optical fibre transmission to 80 Gbit/s. BT labs demonstrated the world's fastest regenerator – a photonic digital network component.

1995 [June] – BT research designed and developed avideo on demandservice, which was trialled in the local area [Ipswich – Colchester], with 2,500 customers. It used asymmetric data on a subscriber's line (asymmetric digital subscriber line) over copper cables, with a decoder supplied by Apple.– article on trial

1987 [August] – the world's first instantaneous translation of speech by computer was unveiled by BT's research laboratories.

1982 [April] – Europe's first satellite transmission service was launched with Adastral Park's satellite dishes beaming television signals to theOrbital Test Satellite,run byEutelsat,allowing Finnish and Norwegian viewers to receive the (English language) signals.

1979 [September] – GPO launchedPrestel,the world's first viewdata network.

External links

• BT Technology Journal
• BT Group
• Adastral Park