Airbus Selects France Telecom Group

HostReview.com
Wednesday, July 13, 2005; 11:58 AM

France Telecom Group, with its fully-owned subsidiary Equant, and Cisco Systems Inc. announced today that they have been selected by Airbus for a five-year contract to implement an IP (Internet Protocol) telephony solution.

This contract includes migration from traditional private branch exchanges to fully IP-based telephony system for 30,000 extensions in France, at both Toulouse sites, and 10,000 extensions in the United Kingdom, at sites in Filton and Broughton.

Cisco will provide 40,000 IP telephone handsets and Cisco CallManager call-processing software to cover all sites. France Telecom, in France, and Equant, in United Kingdom, will provide integration services, including support services with dedicated onsite teams to ensure efficient and complete migration to the new system by the 40,000 end-users.

France Telecom, the main contractor, has full responsibility for the service contract and has signed a service level agreement that certifies the Group commitment to the success of the solution. Tests have been conducted with a panel of end-users to ensure user-friendliness of the system. New functionalities have also been introduced.

From the starting date of the contract, France Telecom and Equant will assume responsibility for the day-to-day support and management of the existing telephone system.

Cisco is one of the main network infrastructure providers to Airbus, with Cisco equipment deployed in most of the local area networks already in place. France Telecom and Equant capitalize on having strong expertise in Cisco technologies resulting from long-term, close business relationships.

"I am enthusiastic about this contract. The convergence of all business communications - voice, video or data - brings about huge benefits: greater ROI through reduced network and administration costs; improved productivity from both end-users and the IT department; and new, high value customer care and productivity applications ," said Barbara Dalibard, Executive Vice President, France Telecom Enterprise Communication Services.

"The Airbus contract with France Telecom and Equant is an excellent example of how customers can make a smooth migration to advanced IP-based business communications services from legacy telephony systems by building upon their investment in Cisco technology," said Chris Dedicoat, senior vice president EMEA at Cisco Systems.

In 2004, Airbus achieved a turnover of more than 20 billion euros, and provided support for the reliable operation of more than 3,500 Airbus airliners in service with more than 230 operators around the globe. To date, Airbus has received more than 5,000 orders from some 200 customers.

Cisco IP Communications is a comprehensive system of enterprise-class solutions including IP telephony, unified communications, rich media IP audio and videoconferencing, IP video broadcasting and customer contact solutions that take advantage of customers' existing Cisco IP infrastructure to deliver new, converged applications.