Telenor, Norway’s largest telecom provider, announced Tuesday that it is set to deploy what it claims will be Europe’s largest WLAN-enabled campus, at its new Fornebu headquarters. The new headquarters occupies 137,000 square meters (about 1,474,649 sq. ft.) and will employ approximately 7,700 people from 40 offices in the greater Oslo area who are relocating.
Telenor is using Cisco’s Architecture for Voice, Video and Integrated Data (AVVID) technology platform, in an overall effort to increase productivity and decrease operational costs. The WLAN will enable employees to gain access to the corporate Intranet, and will be open to all visitors in the buildings and plaza areas as well. Intranet access based on VPN technology and the use of digital certificates is designed to provide security for the corporation.
Hewlett-Packard also worked with Telenor to design and implement IT solutions for the new campus. Cisco equipment used in the WLAN infrastructure includes Cisco Catalyst 6500 switches, Cisco CSS 11000 content services switches, Cisco Aironet 350 Series access points, antenna systems, PC cards, Cisco IDS Intrusion Detection Systems, and Cisco IP telephony CallManagers and Softphone clients. Cisco’s multi-protocol layer switching IP virtual private network (MPLS IPVPN) technology, deployed over Cisco high-end routers for WAN and Internet connectivity, is central to the network architecture.
Telenor hopes that the use of the new technology will encourage new, flexible working practices internally, as well as lead to the development of new services for its SMB customers, and reduce operating costs by several million dollars per year.
Matthew Peretz is Managing Editor of 802.11-Planet.com
