The merger of BHP and Billiton into the world's largest resource group has proved to be very profitable for Equant with the signing of a three-year, US$27 million global agreement for the provision of a wide area network (WAN) solution based on Equant's IP VPN service.
BHP Billiton has chosen Equant as the exclusive provider of its global network, which includes 127 sites on five continents. Equant will migrate BHP Billiton from its current frame relay network, managed by various service providers around the world, to a single, private IP VPN network, based on multi-protocol label switching (MPLS) technology.
As part of the customised solution, Equant will provide a range of project management and consulting services for end-to-end management of BHP Billiton's next-generation global network. This will be co-ordinated by a team of Equant account managers in South Africa, the UK and the US, all working under a global team director based in Australia.
Equant's system will allow BHP Billiton business unit to access data directly from anywhere in the world. The MPLS-based network can carry a wide range of BHP Billiton data, video and voice services simultaneously. Equant IP VPN classes of services also permit prioritisation of this diverse network traffic, permitting a high degree of flexibility to support BHP Billiton's expansion and changing business applications.
BHP Billiton CIO, Cassandra Matthews, said: "When BHP Limited and Billiton Plc merged in June 2001, the Group recognised the need for a single global provider to manage its network worldwide."
"Given the diversity and remoteness of many of our assets around the globe, the ability to communicate between all operations is paramount to BHP Billiton's success. Our users told us that they required reliable, global connectivity which also provided the ability to rapidly manage bandwidth growth in every location."
"Equant was able to deliver this at a competitive price, which will result in significant cost savings for BHP Billiton and positions us well to meet the future network requirements of the Group."
