05/07/2004 - Press Release
COLT launches high-speed Wide Area Network solution at LAN prices
Organisations with multiple metropolitan offices can now operate as a single high-speed LAN at low bandwidth pricing
5 July 2004 - COLT Telecom, a leading pan-European business telecommunications company, today launched a new managed data service for businesses at the Enterprise Networks show in London. Switch-based CPE Solutions delivers high-speed and resilient network connectivity, via Gigabit Ethernet or IP, whilst reducing the costs and complexity of network management substantially.
With Switch-based CPE Solutions, COLT owns and manages businesses' customer premises equipment (CPE). It provides network connectivity up to 1Gbps and typically reduces customers' total cost of ownership by up to 20 per cent. Businesses now benefit from a networking solution that is tailored to their specific requirements, but managed by a third party: it is built from their premises outwards, whereas they would usually have to buy a network-based service themselves and build a solution around it.
COLT is thought to be the first service provider to offer this solution, using the latest switching technology. CPE Solutions is a particularly cost-effective way to build high speed Ethernet or IP ring networks for businesses' metropolitan area networking needs. It enables multiple sites to be managed as a single 'virtual' LAN so that businesses can locate application servers centrally and ensure the corporate applications are available to all users at a ubiquitous high speed, whichever office they are in.
"The solution responds directly to businesses' requirements for cost-effective, resilient and more flexible networking solutions, so they no longer have to buy bandwidth components and manage edge devices themselves," said John Baldwin, manager, managed data services, COLT Telecom. "We are moving our services further into the customer domain and to do this you have to be flexible and offer a solutions approach, not just a vanilla network service."
Reducing costs
COLT's CPE solution uses Cisco's 3550 switch as the Customer Premise Equipment (CPE). Switches are far more cost-effective than traditional router-based solutions for providing Gigabit Ethernet or IP connectivity, meaning high bandwidth managed services can be offered at a fraction of the cost. As COLT has a wholly owned fibre network across Europe, it is uniquely positioned to deliver the lowest cost solution with the Cisco switches. The switches can be interconnected directly with fibre removing the cost of transmission equipment.
Reducing complexity
COLT will own and manage customers' LAN/WAN interface using the Cisco 3550 switch, so that businesses no longer need to handle the traditional complexity of integrating multiple local networks with the WAN.
COLT is uniquely positioned to offer this service, using either Ethernet or fibre connections, because it owns an extensive metropolitan footprint across Europe and has built up extensive expertise in delivering end-to-end managed services. COLT has highly resilient networks in 33 cities and direct fibre connections into 10,000 buildings. CPE Solutions also offers the capability to use third party Ethernet services to extend coverage and enable maximum resilience to be built into the solution.
In line with all its managed services, COLT offers online reporting tools so that network managers can view their entire metropolitan network and track how efficiently they are using the available bandwidth. The service offers classes of service so customers can prioritise high and medium priority traffic and also track the bandwidth demands of different applications.
Ends
About COLT
COLT Telecom Group plc is a leading pan-European provider of business communications services and solutions. The company owns an integrated 20,000 kilometre network that directly connects approximately 10,000 buildings in 32 major cities in 13 countries augmented with a further 42 points of presence across Europe and 11 Internet Solution Centres. COLT supplies customers across the full spectrum of industry, service and government sectors with unrivalled end-to-end network security, reliability and service.
COLT Telecom Group plc is listed on the London Stock Exchange (CTM.L) and NASDAQ (COLT). Information about COLT and its products and services can be found on the web at www.colt.net.
For further editorial information, please contact:
Nicola Porter
COLT Telecom
Tel: + 44 (0) 207 863 5383
Email: nicola.porter@colt-telecom.com