Vodafone Egypt gets set to extend market leadership with 3Com technology

As a company whose market dominance is built on giving customers pioneering mobile telecommunication services, Vodafone Egypt is committed to using only the best technologies across all areas of its business. To support the company`s continuing business growth and improve operational effectiveness, Vodafone Egypt is rebuilding its corporate communication infrastructure using 3Com eXpandable Resilient Networking (XRN) technology and Gigabit Ethernet switches.

"The 3Com solution guarantees we`ll have the resilient, powerful and cost-effective infrastructure we need to meet the escalating demands of a fast-growing organisation in a highly competitive environment," said Mohamed Refaat, senior data network engineer at Vodafone Egypt.

"It will improve operational efficiency and productivity while making life easier for both the IT team and our direct customers - the company`s 1 900 staff. With essential business systems operating at peak efficiency, and more staff having fast and reliable access to up-to-date customer information, our two million plus customers will ultimately benefit from timely and informed customer service and accurate billing."

3Com secured the contract following a competitive tender that involved a number of well-known networking vendors. Vodafone Egypt`s new infrastructure features an entirely new design based on the 3Com Switch 4007, 3Com SuperStack 3 Switch 4924 and SuperStack 3 Switch 4400. Vodafone Egypt will use the XRN Interconnect Kit in conjunction with its two 3Com SuperStack 3 Switch 4924s to interconnect the two switches and create a distributed fabric core which will improve network performance and availability while, crucially, enhancing network redundancy. Vodafone Egypt will also use 3Com Network Supervisor to manage the network. 3Com will continue to work closely with local channel partners Tritech and Perma technology in delivering and supporting the solution.

Since entering the embryonic Egyptian market in 1998, Vodafone Egypt has amassed more than two million customers - all the more notable in a country where only six per cent of the population has a mobile phone. Vodafone Egypt currently has 1 000 employees in its Cairo head office while more than 900 people are located at the company`s seven major sites and fourteen consumer outlets. Vodafone Egypt is in the process of developing an additional head office building in 6th October City.

Despite being the incumbent provider, 3Com competed on equal terms with other suppliers. Refaat explained: "We`ve been satisfied 3Com users since our company was launched in 1998. However, when it came to upgrading the network, it made good business sense to investigate solutions from other leading industry names as well."

"We stayed with 3Com because the company offered a solution based on best all-round products we`d seen that precisely matched all our commercial and technological requirements. All 3Com products combine excellent technology, scalability and resilience with long-term cost effectiveness. Another bonus is that investment protection comes as standard with all 3Com products as they`re designed to be both forward- and backward-compatible. We are confident that we can enhance the network at any time without any problems, particularly as 3Com products also integrate readily with products from other leading manufacturers."

Refaat continued: "We were particularly impressed with the degree of redundancy offered by the 3Com XRN technology. Maximising uptime is absolutely essential to Vodafone Egypt`s business. Take the fact that we calculate charges for a customer`s service use by the second, what might seem like negligible downtime can seriously undermine the accuracy of our billing systems. While we highlighted redundancy through to Layer 3 as an essential feature of any proposed solution, we found that few companies could provide an effective response. By using XRN technology to complement the superlative redundancy and resilience features provided by the SuperStack 3 Switch 4924 - and, indeed, all 3Com switches - we`re confident of having 100% network availability."

"Scalability was another major concern. When we compared competitive products it became obvious that we`d get more ports from 3Com switches at an unbeatable price-per-port. Where scalability is concerned, the 3Com XRN technology is yet again very impressive. The XRN `pay as you grow` approach means we can scale the network to meet changing business needs quickly and simply without any significant drain on IT budget. Using XRN gives us yet another route by which we can protect our investment in 3Com technology."

According to Refaat, the previous 3Com high-speed network, had served the company well for over four years. In fact, the company remains sufficiently satisfied with the performance of these products that they plan to retain them within the new infrastructure. As business escalated, however, and the number of staff needing fast network access grew, by 2002 the network had reached the point at which an upgrade was inevitable.

Refaat concluded: "We`re confident that the new 3Com infrastructure is more than up to the challenge of delivering on our requirements now and in the future."