BT Research is the research arm of
BT Group, formerly part of the British
General Post Office
The General Post Office (GPO) was the state postal system and telecommunications carrier of the United Kingdom until 1969. Established in England in the 17th century, the GPO was a state monopoly covering the dispatch of items from a specific ...
. The company was first established in 1921 as the Post Office Research Station in
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 renamed
Adastral Park.
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Location

BT's main research facility is located in the United Kingdom at
Adastral Park, near
Ipswich
Ipswich () is a port town and Borough status in the United Kingdom, borough in Suffolk, England. It is the county town, and largest in Suffolk, followed by Lowestoft and Bury St Edmunds, and the third-largest population centre in East Anglia, ...
in the county of Suffolk. The Adastral Park site was first planned around 1968 as the Martlesham Heath Post Office Laboratories and after completion in 1971 it has grown to a facility which today 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).
The
Royal Air Force
The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the Air force, air and space force of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies. It was formed towards the end of the World War I, First World War on 1 April 1918, on the merger of t ...
were the original residents of the site in Suffolk at
RAF 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
uccessor to the MOWwould 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 and
semantic 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 the
University of Cambridge
The University of Cambridge is a Public university, public collegiate university, collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209, the University of Cambridge is the List of oldest universities in continuous operation, wo ...
in the UK, the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a Private university, private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Established in 1861, MIT has played a significant role in the development of many areas of moder ...
(MIT) in the US and
Tsinghua University
Tsinghua University (THU) is a public university in Haidian, Beijing, China. It is affiliated with and funded by the Ministry of Education of China. The university is part of Project 211, Project 985, and the Double First-Class Constructio ...
in 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
Research in the company was first established in 1921 at the
Post Office Research Station at
Dollis Hill, London. In 1968 BT began the move of its research to the new site at
Martlesham Heath in 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 Queen
Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom. The architect was Mr Stanislaw Spielrein ARIBA of the Ministry of Public Building and Works
PBW[RIBA Kalendar 1964-5, p.215] 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
ctober– 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
une– 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
uly– 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
une– BT research designed and developed a
video on demand
Video on demand (VOD) is a media distribution system that allows users to access videos, television shows and films Digital distribution, digitally on request. These multimedia are accessed without a traditional video playback device and a typica ...
service, which was trialled in the local area
pswich – Colchester with 2,500 customers. It used asymmetric data on a subscriber's line (
asymmetric digital subscriber line
Asymmetric digital subscriber line (ADSL) is a type of digital subscriber line (DSL) technology, a data communications technology that enables faster data transmission over copper telephone lines than a conventional voiceband modem can provide ...
) over copper cables, with a decoder supplied by Apple
– article on trial
1987
ugust– the world's first instantaneous translation of speech by computer was unveiled by BT's research laboratories.
1982
pril– Europe's first satellite transmission service was launched with Adastral Park's satellite dishes beaming television signals to the
Orbital Test Satellite, run by
Eutelsat, allowing Finnish and Norwegian viewers to receive the (English language) signals.
1979
eptember– GPO launched
Prestel, the world's first viewdata network.
References
External links
BT Technology JournalBT GroupAdastral Park
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BT Group
Computer science in the United Kingdom
Computer science organizations
Electronics companies of the United Kingdom
Information technology research institutes
Internet pioneers
Organisations based in Suffolk
Research and development in the United Kingdom
Research and development organizations
Research institutes established in 1921
Suffolk Coastal
1921 establishments in the United Kingdom