Batelco and Citibank lead the way with Global Diversified Network

Batelco and Citibank lead the way with Global Diversified Network;
First telecommunications company and first bank with GMPLS in the region
 
In the first phase of a multi million dollar project Batelco has added another ‘first’ to its line-up of innovative solutions by providing GMPLS (Global Multi Protocol Label Switching) managed services for Citibank Bahrain, making it the first bank in the Kingdom of Bahrain to take advantage of a completely Diverse Managed Network.
The state-of-the-art solution provides international connectivity to Citibank’s locations in Middle East and Europe from Bahrain via Batelco GMPLS managed service.
The solution divides the bank’s traffic to Europe over two links with a total bandwidth of 20MB, which guarantees complete redundancy of the network. In the event of the failure of one link, all traffic would automatically re-route to the healthy link, thus ensuring the continuity of full services with no disruption to Citibank.
Bahrain’s competitiveness as a telecommunications hub resulting from Batelco’s significant, multi-million Bahraini dinar investments in the Kingdom’s telecommunications infrastructure, proved to be a key factor in Citibank’s decision when searching for a regional HUB location.
“Investments in Batelco's data centre and internet platform, the opening of Batelco’s NOC (Network Operations Centre) and Batelco’s soon-to-be-complete NGN (Next Generation Network) have all contributed to making the Kingdom of Bahrain a powerhouse in the region and a location of choice for such leading organisations as Citibank,” said Batelco Chief Executive Peter Kaliaropoulos.
To ensure that optimum service levels are achieved at all times for Citibank and its customers, all network traffic is monitored around the clock, every day of the year, from Batelco’s NOC, where any fault is recorded immediately and acted upon without delay. Batelco aims to achieve performance levels that are inline with the highest global standards.
Batelco is working with Citibank on the plan to implement phase 2 of the GMPLS project to cover the rest of ME countries.
“Batelco is proud to be working alongside Citibank in providing world-class services that will maintain Bahrain’s status as a communication’s hub for the Middle East region,” said Mr. Kaliaropoulos.
“By providing a One Stop Shop (OSS) service, we hope to encourage other financial organisations in the Kingdom to avail of the advanced telecommunication technologies offered by Batelco,” he added.
Batelco has invested in excess of $1.4 billion in the Kingdom’s infrastructure, including $72 million in 2007 alone to ensure the availability of world-class products and services for the Kingdom. Accordingly, Bahrain’s access to global information and communications services is ahead of numerous international markets.