Orange Business Services signs wide area networking agreement with United Arab Shipping Company

The new Orange Business Services WAN links 28 of UASC's international sites in North America and Europe, and includes 10 sites in the Middle East. These sites can now all talk with the new UASC data center in Singapore, from where they can access critical business applications.

UASC is the largest ocean carrier of dry cargo to the Middle East. It offers a comprehensive range of containerized and break bulk services between the Arabian Gulf, Red Sea and the major trade centers of the Far East, Europe, U.S. East Coast and the Indian Subcontinent.

UASC needed the converged and innovative services that IP delivers to allow their employees access to the internet without compromising the corporate network as well as securing sites and branch offices from internal and external attacks. Building a voice network based on IP technology that could also connect UASC's offices together may be considered in the future, particularly because this will cut costs as well as bring flexibility of features that can't be offered by traditional PBX systems.

Paul Vaughan, CIO of United Arab Shipping Company, comments:

"UASC is expanding and moving towards a strategy of IT centralization to support our growing business. We needed a total infrastructure solution that was secure and scalable that would help us rise to the challenge of deploying business applications that promise to revolutionize our business model, from the way we operate to the management of pricing for our services. Orange Business Services was able to provide a powerful network solution with the capability to add new services, such as VOIP, in the future."

Lionel Reina, vice president, Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa, Orange Business Services, adds: "We are pleased to be working with one of the largest ocean carriers in the Middle East. The new IP networking agreement with UASC is very significant for us as it's in one of the core markets that is growing very strongly and driving double digit growth in revenues for us in this region."