XO Books Deal With Planet Hollywood

Broadband provider XO Communications, Inc. has signed a multi-year, multi-location voice and data service agreement estimated to be worth more than $1 million with Planet Hollywood , the restaurant chain that focuses on the appeal of movies, television, sports, music and other leisure-time activities.

Under the agreement, the Reston, Va.-based XO will provide integrated communications services including hosting PlanetHollywood.com and providing dedicated Web hosting, a national virtual private network (VPN) solution, local voice services for 22 locations and national long distance service to all of Planet Hollywood’s 28 sites.

By using XO’s VPN service, Planet Hollywood can communicate between all of its locations using private and secure voice and data “tunnels” through the public Internet.

Planet Hollywood is collocating its VPN hardware in XO’s data center facility in Irvine, Calif., and will outsource VPN operations and management to XO while still capitalizing on their own existing investments in network hardware. XO is also providing server collocation service.

By combining XO VPN service with XO dedicated hosting, Planet Hollywood operates a infrastructure for application hosting and can power its chat room events that allow Planet Hollywood customers to communicate with various celebrities.

“We looked at the traditional players in the data and voice communications industry and found each falling short of our need for simplicity, high service levels and real cost savings. XO’s depth of services, combined with its national infrastructure, bandwidth and security, are crucial to our business,” said Tina Samson, Planet Hollywood’s senior vice president of finance. “In addition to reaping the benefits of a single, reliable provider for our communications needs, Planet Hollywood expects to add nearly $500,000 in savings to the company’s bottom line.”