BT this week named eight primary suppliers for its five-year, $19 billion all-IP 21st Century Network (21CN) buildout. The Elite Eight are the culmination of two years of discussions and negotiations with more than 300 potential suppliers. The suppliers are Fujitsu, Huawei, Alcatel, Cisco, Siemens, Lucent, Ericsson and Ciena. Marconi, an incumbent supplier to BT, was passed over for preferred supplier status on 21CN. Marconi's stock dropped 40% as a result, and the company said it could lay off 2,000 to 3,000 employees by missing out on the contract. (Read the story)

Verizon says it will decommission the 380 free Wi-Fi hotspots in New York City it turned up for its DSL customers two years ago. The carrier said usage didn't live up to expectations - less than half were generating more than 80% of the traffic. Verizon will instead steer mobile business customers to its cellular EV-DO BroadbandAccess service, which costs $80 per month. All hotspots will be shut down in two months. (Read the story)

One RBOC that's not backing away from Wi-Fi is SBC. SBC rolled out a package of integrated wireless remote access options for its VPN services called VPN RoadWarrior. It combines SBC's PremierSERV VPN secure remote access services with its FreedomLink Wi-Fi and Cingular Wireless EDGE nationwide wireless data services. The combination enables laptop users to switch between office network and wireless connections to stay connected at the maximum available access speed. (Read the story)