BT today announced the launch of its BT Intelligent Virtual Private Network (iVPN) service in 172 countries, allowing global organisations to better manage and improve the performance of their IT network and business applications, and reduce technical and operational costs.
The development of BT iVPN was made possible by BT's investment in its 21st Century Network (21CN) global platform. 21CN is BT's global, software-driven customer network platform that introduces a new, simpler portfolio of next-generation services.
With BT iVPN, businesses can:
* Reduce their technical running costs and improve productivity, by managing and prioritising traffic over their IT network across the world, running mail, voice, video and other business applications more efficiently and ultimately maximising return on investment.
* Drive operational cost savings through faster implementation, fewer manual interventions, less interruption to service, and with local support in local language.
* Have increased confidence in a secure and resilient service, offering better network availability, automated delivery assurance, real-time reporting, plus proactive and automated incident notification - giving control and flexibility to users.
“BT's iVPN offering demonstrates the role that technology can play during an economic downturn and, of course, in enhancing business efficiencies in general,” commented Keith Mathews, head of BT South Africa. “It is a technology offering in tune with current market conditions and will be seriously considered by multinationals working out of, or doing business in, South Africa.”
Following trials with customers in the industrial and financial services industries, BT is combining iVPN with other BT services such as Internet-based access, application optimisation, voice management, video conferencing, unified communications, data centres, call centres, security and mobility, working alongside customers to build solutions that unlock value across their business.
Neil Sutton, vice-president of Global Propositions and Capabilities, BT Global Services, said: “BT's goal is to improve efficiency, value and customer experience for customers across all our services. The launch of BT iVPN is a significant step towards achieving this, building on the strength of our award-winning global multi-protocol label switching (MPLS) service. Organisations look for a trusted provider with a track record of reliable service to provide their networked services. BT was ranked first for customer satisfaction with global data VPN providers in a September 2008 Telemark survey of 700 customers. The launch of BT iVPN demonstrates our commitment to provide an innovative portfolio of solutions, and our commitment to improve our customers' experience.”
The launch of BT iVPN has been favourably commented by industry analysts. Sandra O'Boyle, Research Director, Business Telecom Services Europe at Current Analysis, said: “BT iVPN is on the right track in terms of improving MPLS VPN service delivery, local language support and providing site to site SLAs across regions for BT's global customers. For customers, this translates into tangible benefits such as more accurate billing, faster provisioning times and resolution of any site performance issues.”
For more information on BT iVPN, please visit http://www.globalservices.bt.com/iVPN.
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BT
BT is one of the world's leading providers of communications solutions and services operating in 170 countries. Its principal activities include the provision of networked IT services globally; local, national and international telecommunications services to our customers for use at home, at work and on the move; broadband and Internet products and services and converged fixed/mobile products and services. BT consists principally of four lines of business: BT Global Services, Openreach, BT Retail and BT Wholesale.
In the year ended 31 March 2008, BT Group's revenue was lb20 704 million with profit before taxation and specific items of lb2 506 million.
British Telecommunications (BT) is a wholly-owned subsidiary of BT Group and encompasses virtually all businesses and assets of the BT Group. BT Group is listed on stock exchanges in London and New York. For more information, visit http://www.bt.com/aboutbt.
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