SINGAPORE — Global One, a provider of telecom services and networks worldwide for multinational corporations, has announced that eight enterprises in the Asia Pacific region have recently sign up for its Global IP VPN service based on multi-protocol label switching (MPLS) technology.
“We are pleased by the enthusiastic reception for Global IP VPN by eight new Asia Pacific customers, with operations in shipping, freight forwarding, pharmaceuticals and chemicals, connected to community of interest networks spanning many geographical regions,” said Gopi Gopinath, Global One senior vice-president for Asia Pacific.
“The large number of prospects in our pipeline point to even greater success for this cutting edge e-business enabling solution in the coming months,” he added.
Global One’s eight recent wins in the region include John Swire & Sons Ltd. in Australia, “K” Line in Japan, Sinochem in China and Yageo Corporation in Taiwan. A company official said the other four contracts were signed in Japan and Hong Kong, and that these customers were “well-known names” in the banking and manufacturing industries.
Signed in March this year, the more than US$5 million contract with components manufacturer Yageo Corporation will see Global One interconnecting 25 Yageo sites in Europe to their Taipei headquarters.
Yageo, which has operations in 22 countries, had recently acquired two companies from the Philips Group – Phycomp and Ferroxcube – and it is these corporate sites in Europe that will be initially interconnected via Global IP VPN. Another 15 Yageo sites will be added in the second phase of the five-year contract.
Apart from providing its MPLS-based IP VPN service, Global One will also provide Yageo with a range of other customized services, including Global IP Dial, Global Security, Global IP Direct, and Global Web Hosting.
Global One’s contract with the Australia operations of London-headquartered John Swire & Sons Ltd., privately held parent company of the Swire Group, will see it interconnect John Swire & Sons sites in Sydney, Brisbane, and Melbourne.
The three-year contract will also see Global One connecting these sites to the soon-to-be-opened Global Hosting Center in Sydney for Global Co-location and Global Security services. Additional national and international sites are expected to be added over the course of the contract.
Japanese shipping line “K” Line’s two-year contract with Global One will see the latter interconnect nine “K” Line sites in Asia Pacific, Europe and the U.S. More national and international sites are also expected to be added over the contract period.
According to Global One officials, the latest contract wins have brought the number of Global IP VPN customers up to more than 60 companies worldwide since the launch of the service in ugust 1999.
MPLS technology encapsulates and assigns labels to IP packets according to VPN Ids and pre-established classes of service. IP network routers then use packet labels to switch packets based on the priority assigned in the label, instead of using IP addressing.
Carriers are then able to create pre-defined paths for different classes of traffic to ensure optimal traffic engineering, resulting in quality of service (QoS) advantages for customers, according to Global One. And by placing MPLS-enabled service routers closer to customer locations, Global One is able to optimize the routing for greater any-to-any connectivity, flexibility and improved performance.
Global One is a member of the France Telecom Group, and has 5,000 employees worldwide with local sales presence in more than 70 countries.
