Vodafone to Improve the Backbone

Vodafone Egypt is to start rebuilding its corporate communication infrastructure using 3Com eXpandable Resilient Networking (XRN) technology and Gigabit Ethernet switches. 3Com secured the contract following a competitive tender that involved a number of well-known networking vendors. Vodafone Egypt's new infrastructure features an entirely new design based on the 3Com Switch 4007, 3Com SuperStack 3 Switch 4924 and SuperStack 3 Switch 4400. Vodafone Egypt will use the XRN Interconnect Kit in conjunction with its two 3Com SuperStack 3 Switch 4924s to interconnect the two switches and create a distributed fabric core which will improve network performance and availability while, crucially, enhancing network redundancy. Vodafone Egypt will also use 3Com Network Supervisor to manage the network. 3Com will continue to work closely with local channel partners Tritech and Perma technology in delivering and supporting the solution.

"The 3Com solution guarantees we'll have the resilient, powerful and cost effective infrastructure we need to meet the escalating demands of a fast-growing organisation in a highly competitive environment," said Mohamed Refaat, senior data network engineer at Vodafone Egypt. "It will improve operational efficiency and productivity while making life easier for both the IT team and our direct customers - the company's 1,900 staff. With essential business systems operating at peak efficiency, and more staff having fast and reliable access to up-to-date customer information, our two million plus customers will ultimately benefit from timely and informed customer service and accurate billing."

Since entering the embryonic Egyptian market in 1998, Vodafone Egypt has amassed more than two million customers - all the more notable in a country where only six per cent of the population has a mobile phone. Vodafone Egypt currently has 1,000 employees in its Cairo head office while more than 900 people are located at the company's seven major sites and fourteen consumer outlets. Vodafone Egypt is in the process of developing an additional head office building in 6th October City.

Refaat continued: "We were particularly impressed with the degree of redundancy offered by the 3Com XRN technology. Maximising uptime is absolutely essential to Vodafone Egypt's business. Take the fact that we calculate charges for a customer's service use by the second, what might seem like negligible downtime can seriously undermine the accuracy of our billing systems. While we highlighted redundancy through to Layer 3 as an essential feature of any proposed solution, we found that few companies could provide an effective response. By using XRN technology to complement the superlative redundancy and resilience features provided by the SuperStack 3 Switch 4924 - and, indeed, all 3Com switches - we're confident of having 100 per cent network availability."

Refaat concluded: "We're confident that the new 3Com infrastructure is more than up to the challenge of delivering on our requirements now and in the future."

Posted to the site on 2nd May 2003