AT&T to pump another $US1b into global network expansion

Stuart Corner
Wednesday, 25 February 2009 01:29

IT Industry - Market

One area of telecoms that does not seem to have been hit by the world's financial troubles is the global networking industry, with AT&T the latest global player to announce plans for major investment in its network during 2009.

AT&T said its investment would be focused on the network infrastructure, services and support for companies requiring 'anytime, anywhere' access to the systems, suppliers, customers and employees and would include investment in: delivery and support of network-based, on-demand applications; the rapid roll-out of mobility solutions and applications to businesses of all sizes; the continued integration of IBM's global network operations under the two companies' expanded agreement; the continued build out of AT&T's global network to deliver services and applications to the markets and geographies where multinational companies today are doing business and/or housing their operations.

AT&T said that this $US1b investment would take the total invested in its global network since 2006 to $US3 billion.

To expand its global network AT&T wil deploy new cable capacity to Alaska, Australia, the Asia Pacific, India, Puerto Rico and the Caribbean, and on trans-Atlantic routes to Europe. AT&T plans to continue to grow global backbone capacity by introducing new and faster 10Gbps edge equipment, increasing backbone bandwidth and adding more Cisco CRS1 routers on key routes.

VPN services will be extended in an additional 18 countries, giving VPN access in a total of 149 countries. VPN ethernet access will be available in 38 countries increased from 34 today. VPN DSL access will be available in 44 countries increased from 38 today. VPLS access will be available in 31 countries increased from 15 today.

To meet the global requirements of governments and companies, AT&T has embarked on a multi-year plan to deliver a full complement of IPv6 networking services that it says will also preserve customers' existing IPv4 investment.

Verizon, Reliance, Tata all expanding
Verizon Business detailed its global network expansion plans for 2009 earlier this month saying that, after investing $US17.2b in 2008 to expand its global network it was planning further expansion during 2009 in nearly every part of the world. The company did not, however put any dollar value on these plans.

Verizon's announcement was followed by one from Tata Communications in which the company said it would invest $US430m in the Asia Pacific region as part of a $US2b three year global expansion plan. The money will be used to build a new Internet data centre in Singapore and complete the main segment of its TGN-Intra Asia cable system.

Meanwhile India's Reliance Globalcom, the global carrier subsidiary of India's Reliance Communications and a relative newcomer to the global network market, has set its sights firmly on challenging the major global carriers like BT Global Services, AT&T and Verizon Business, but has not given any details of planned investments in its global network.