Concerns about 21CN and future systems and protoco...

Question

I don't know if this is the right forum for this topic.  Please tell me if it should be somewhere else.
I live in a block of managed "retirement flats for the active retired" - not "care home", please !
As part of the security features, we have a 24/7 electronic emergency "help system" whereby, when we pull a cord in the bathroom or bedroom, for example, we alert a dedicated help centre about sixty or seventy miles away which then provides whatever assistance is required either by talking to us directly or by alerting emergency services locally.
Obviously, this system depends on access to the public telecommunications network in order to work at all.
We have been informed by the management company that our system needs to be replaced as it is now getting too old to maintain.  Also, that we will have to pay for it ourselves.  Both facts of which we accept.
We have been given two new systems to select from (one called Tunstall Communicall and the other called Tynetec Systems).  However, one of the first snags we have run into is one of "future proofing".  We have been learning about BT's plans for "21CN" and are concerned about whether any of the two systems we have been given to choose from  will continue to function after 21CN comes into effect.  Also, whether they will continue to work if BT changes or modifies the specifications for 21CN at any time now or in the future.
Tunstall Communicall claim (repeat, claim) that their system is entirely futureproof by virtue of the fact that they can program into their boxes any protocol that BT (or any other telecomms provider) can throw at them .  This, they claim, applies now and in the future.
Tynetec, on the other hand, while claiming (again, claiming) to be fully 21CN compliant, doubt that it is possible for any manufacturer to guarantee to meet every change that BT might throw at them in the future and therefore see no point in trying to guess what BT might do beyond 21CN.  As a consequence, they see no point in building this kind of functionality into their systems.  Who is telling the truth?
How can we learn more about 21CN in particular -- and BT's plan for its networks in general?  Also, will the adoption of Internet Protocols affect the kind of equipment we are planning to invest in?  Also, what does 21CN mean to people like us; are its specifications likely to change (and thereby leave us in the lurch) and is it even going ahead at all?
Would it be worthwhile asking the local BT Area Manager in our area to send someone technical to come and talk to us about this?  After all, we stand to be forking out more than £24,000 for something that might not work in a few years time - all because of BT.

Answer 1

Have a check Here it is a web site to do with the 21cn switch over.
I suspect that your alarm system will work as all it is is dial up telemetry over a pstn line.
To a certain extent 21cn at CPE (customers premises equipment) level will be backwards compatible, there will be many other companies who use this technology, like water and gas company's.
There was a similar issue back in the 80s when BT upgraded their exchanges from analogue to digital (ie Strowger to System X and Y) The majority of phones worked but the older ones would not give you the full range of facility's (pulse dialling and tone dialling)
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