Not sure Jim, here is some thing for you
FRENCH POSTAL AUTHORITY ADDS $5 MILLION N.E.T. FRAME RELAY OVERLAY TO MULTISERVICE BACKBONE
REDWOOD CITY, Calif., January 16, 1997 - N.E.T. announced today that La Poste, the French postal authority, has added N.E.T.T FrameXpressT frame relay capabilities to its 30-node N.E.T.T IDNXr multiservice backbone network. The multiservice backbone supports La Poste's banking and financial services, investment transactions, and national and international urgent parcel delivery services. FrameXpress frame relay capabilities were selected to provide faster switching, higher circuit capacity, simpler protocols, and less overhead. La Poste added the frame relay overlay network, valued at $5 million, through a contract won by France Telecom, a prime N.E.T. distribution channel in France.
"The addition of FrameXpress to our IDNX multiservice backbone fits our requirements for transaction processing during business hours and large file transfers during the night," said Mr. Dominique Guerinet, director of telecommunications, La Poste. "We were able to dramatically reduce the number of interfaces to the network which has enabled us to increase our traffic load tenfold."
La Poste created an IDNX multiservice backbone whose primary function was to carry X.25 traffic for banking transactions among 14,000 offices in France. La Poste made the decision to migrate the X.25 traffic to frame relay to increase capacity and take advantage of cost efficiencies afforded by frame relay. The IDNX multiservice switches could be enhanced with internal FrameXpress modules that allow frame relay traffic to ride on the same backbone with other types of traffic.
"FrameXpress capabilities added to La Poste's existing N.E.T. multiservice backbone was well prepared and the result was 100 percent successful," said Mr. Eric Zimmerman, project manager, La Poste. "The new frame relay network is now in charge of all traffic generated by IBM front-end processors and Bull Datanet services at La Poste mainframe centers, and the result is simplified networking requirements and increased performance."
"La Poste is a long-term client and we are pleased to continue to add value to their network to help them serve their customers more efficiently," said Philippe Blanquart, sales director, N.E.T. France. "We understand their networking requirements and could add frame relay as an overlay to support traffic from devices ranging from mainframe computers to routers or X.25 communication servers."
The frame relay migration was carefully orchestrated to ensure that the changeover from X.25 circuit traffic to frame relay traffic was transparent to business. First, the IDNX nodes were enhanced with the latest software release to support frame relay since the nodes were in operation prior to the introduction of frame relay. Next, a pilot phase was implemented in conjunction with lab trials. La Poste can use the computerized WANDL traffic tool to optimize network utilization and make adjustments for different types of traffic situations. As of the end of October, 1996, traffic was shifted from circuits to frame relay successfully. This network application has allowed La Poste to keep legacy applications, carry X.25 traffic encapsulated over frame relay, accelerate the speed of each transaction session and improve response time to each user.
The N.E.T. family of multiservice bandwidth managers consists of five models with sophisticated networking functions that combine efficient multiplexing, intelligent call-routing, voice compression, LAN internetworking and routing, frame relay switching, ISDN signaling and network management.
La Poste is responsible for all mail postage, carriage, and the largest part of delivery services in France, plus some parcel deliveries. In addition, La Poste offers a variety of extended services including banking and financial services, and national and international urgent courier delivery services.
N.E.T., headquartered in Redwood City, Calif., is a leading worldwide supplier of multiservice backbone networks used by enterprises and global carriers in more than 50 countries. N.E.T. multiservice WANs integrate voice, data, and video traffic with frame relay, LAN internetworking and ISDN capabilities for today's mission-critical applications. The company is certified to the worldwide ISO 9001 standard for design, manufacturing and servicing. Join us at our worldwide web site: net.com for further information.
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