China Railcom Selects Nortel, Digital China for Nationwide Network

📅 October 23, 2001 - China Railcom has selected Nortel Networks (nortelnetworks.com) and Digital China (digitalchina.com.cn) to deliver a nationwide, multiservice ATM backbone network for the People's Republic of China. The contract provides for both equipment and services.

With nearly 30 years of operating experience in Greater China, NortelNetworks has won contracts estimated to be worth more than US$1.2 billionsince the start of 2001 from customers such as China Railcom. NortelNetworks is also investing in China to deliver key next generationnetworking solutions, and its comprehensive R&D facilities in Beijing areexpected to play an important role in developing new technologies.
The agreement for China Railcom's new broadband, multiservice ATM backbonenetwork provides for the supply of Nortel Networks Passport 15000-VSSmultiservice carrier switch and Passport 7480 multiservice switches. ThePassport service provider portfolio is a key component of Nortel Networkssolutions for high-growth Internet services. This versatile, reliable,highly scalable platform speeds new data services such as ATM, frame relayand IP- VPNs. It can also be optimized to meet the requirements of specificnetwork sites, enabling service providers to 'grow as they go' by expandingswitch features as requirements increase or change. By allowing multipleservices to run on a single switch, Passport drives lower operational costsand improved service margins. Requiring only one platform to deploy multipleservices, Passport removes the need for parallel networks. Passport iscomplemented by rich network and service management capabilities.
Scheduled to commence operation by year-end 2001, the China Railcom backbonenetwork will provide an end-to-end multiservice platform to China Railcom'sbranches in 150 cities across China. The network will deliver the power andbandwidth of the Optical Internet, allowing China Railcom to provide dataservices including voice, data, multiprotocol label switching , IP-VPN, ATM,frame relay and other services to any of its customers, with a focus onstrategic accounts. ATM technology simplifies the overall networkingenvironment through consolidation of all types of traffic onto a single,manageable network.
Based on infrastructure and institutes under the Ministry of Railways (MOR),China Railcom was established Dec. 2000 and operates one of China's threelargest telecommunications networks. Nortel Networks has a proven businessrecord with both MOR and China Railcom. Nortel Networks built a nationwidedata backbone network for MOR in 1998, and won a contract from China Railcomat the end of 2000 to build a Beijing-Shanghai-Guangzhou 1,600gigabits-per-second, high-performance Optical Internet ring to connect fiveother smaller rings.
"This network is an important milestone in our relationship with ChinaRailcom," said Yuan-hao Lin, senior vice president, Nortel Networks China."China Railcom's new national ATM backbone network will create a newbusiness framework. It will allow us to position them for new, high-value,broadband services, drive higher returns on their customer relationships,accelerate delivery of personalized content, and unleash new businessmodels."
Nortel Networks ranked No. 1 in China's ATM market with a 24.3 percent shareat year-end 2000 according to the CCID Group. Frost & Sullivan ranked NortelNetworks as the No. 1 supplier to China's Optical Internet infrastructuremarket in 2000. In February 2001, Nortel Networks was awarded China'ssingle, largest optical contract ever - to build a 15,000-kilometer longhaul network for China Telecom, which operates the nation's most extensiveterrestrial communications network. IDC ranks Digital China No. 1 in systemsintegration volume in China, including No. 1 in government, No. 2 infinance, and No. 4 in telecommunications.