Singapore Telecom is doing it again. One of the first cities outside
of the U.S. to introduce the telephone just three years after it was patented by Alexander Graham Bell, Singapore Telecom currently leads much of the world in its deployment of advanced networking capabilities. Singapore Telecom is Asia's premier telecommunications service provider, the largest company in Asia outside of Japan, and visionary in its approach to new market opportunities.
As deregulation opens the world's telecom markets, Singapore Telecom's exclusive license to provide basic telecommunications services in Singapore expires March 31, 2000. To maintain its market leadership position and leverage new business market opportunities, Singapore Telecom looked for an integrated services platform that would enable them to continue delivering world-class Frame Relay, X.25, voice, Internet, and asynchronous digital subscriber line (ADSL) services while deploying new-world, revenue-generating IP and private network services. Singapore Telecom chose Cisco BPX® 8600 series wide-area switches to build its international and domestic ATM services.
Competition Demands a Powerful, Future-Proof Platform
Singapore Telecom's current offerings include reliable, high-quality private network, public data, public messaging, managed network, voice, videoconferencing, and satellite services. The company's challenge is to maintain these services while ensuring the agility to deliver emerging IP-based services. With a commitment to the new networking world, Singapore Telecom looked for a platform that would enable it to cost-effectively deliver IP+ATM services with outstanding quality of service and reliability. After evaluating several different platforms and performing extensive benchmarking and operations tests, Singapore Telecom chose Cisco BPX 8600 series wide-area switches from Cisco Systems.
"SingTel is the only telecommunications service provider in the Asia Pacific region to offer both international and domestic ATM service," says Lim Shyong, senior vice president, Global Services, Singapore Telecom. "Given the extensive reach within Singapore and its potential to reach business centers worldwide, this new service will offer cost-effective solutions to support business customers."
Into Production in Record Time
In just 17 weeks, Singapore Telecom's BPX 8600 series network was in production. This network comprises of Cisco BPX 8600 series switches deployed in a fully redundant, highly resilient configuration. Cisco MGX™ 8220 edge concentrator shelves are integrated with the BPX 8600 series switches, enabling Singapore Telecom to concentrate narrowband traffic from thousands of users onto a single port of the BPX 8600 series broadband interface card. Each BPX 8600 series switch can support up to 16,000 T1 ports, giving Singapore Telecom exceptional scalability for supporting rapidly growing traffic volumes from its business customers.
High-performance engines for revenue growth, Cisco BPX 8600 switches provide Singapore Telecom with the application-layer visibility of IP and the quality of service (QoS) characteristics of ATM. With the industry's highest port densities and the ability to provide bandwidth on demand, the BPX 8600 series gives Singapore Telecom unmatched IP and ATM scalability. Even the most explosive projected growth will be no match for the company's new IP+ATM infrastructure.
Cisco's Tag Switching capabilities represent the industry's first end-to-end implementation of the emerging multiprotocol label switching (MPLS) standard and will allow Singapore Telecom to provision customized, integrated IP services—such as premium-level Internet, virtual private network (VPN), managed intranet, voice over IP, Web hosting, and IP fax relay—along with ATM and hybrid services from a single platform. The Cisco BPX 8600 series' IP+ATM capabilities give Singapore Telecom enormous flexibility in deploying the widest possible range of differentiated, revenue-generating services.
"With SingTel's ATM service, bandwidth can now be provided on demand, depending on the customers' requirements," says Victor Kwok, managing director, Business Communications Development, Singapore Telecom. "The network is used much more efficiently and the cost of network resources is reduced significantly, translating into cost savings for our customers."
The Vision Results in a Window of Opportunity
"As one of the world's leading telecommunications service providers, Singapore Telecom is committed to delivering the telecommunications services that best meet the global business needs of our customers," said Wong Soon Nam, director of Business Networks, Singapore Telecom. The Cisco IP+ATM multiservice network also enables Singapore Telecom to contain or reduce its costs, allowing the company to pass savings along to its customers. Wide-area IP services represent the fastest-growing market opportunity for service providers, and Singapore Telecom is ready. With its new-world networking infrastructure in place and a well-deserved reputation for providing high-quality services, Singapore Telecom's IP+ATM network gives it a significant advantage over future competition.
High-performance engines for revenue growth, Cisco BPX 8600 switches provide Singapore Telecom with the application-layer visibility of IP and the quality of service (QoS) characteristics of ATM.