Cable and Wireless has won a five-year contract with Woolworths to provide managed communications services.
The telecoms company will manage all Woolworths' networks and will be responsible for the IP-based local area networks at its London head office, Castleton and Swindon data centres, remote corporate sites and its 820 stores across the UK. In addition, it will roll out an IP-VPN to connect Woolworths' head office, regional offices, distribution centres and data centres and all its stores.
Cable and Wireless said the retailer would benefit from having everything running on a single IP network as it would allow the company to "benefit from faster communications and be able to offer a more responsive and dynamic service to its customers".
The network will be able to prioritise vital traffic like credit card authorisations for stores and it is hoped that the network will allow the retailer to consolidate its traditional voice network onto its new data network.
"Our network management, maintenance, network provision, capacity planning and disaster recovery have effectively been outsourced to Cable & Wireless," said Pete Wilkinson, head of systems delivery at Woolworths.
Wilkinson added that Cable and Wireless had "a great desire and commitment to understand our business and our people and shape the service to suit our needs."
"I have great confidence that our networks are in good hands, allowing us to focus on our retail and channel systems," he said.
