"We are extremely proud to be the first company to offer a comprehensive MPLS network in the Caribbean," said Chris Hetherington, CEO Americas & Caribbean, Cable & Wireless.  "Our top corporate customers require guarantees on the speed and Quality of Service (QoS) our IP networks can provide, whether it be for video conferencing, voice services, or email and other transactional data.  Today, we are in a world where volume of applications and data flow is great, and network capacity can be limited or expensive.  Older, legacy systems are insufficient in providing value for bandwidth.  Our investment in MPLS puts Cable & Wireless in an advantageous position.  Not only are we able to offer quality guarantees to our customers, but we are using bandwidth more efficiently than before, which keeps their costs down.  This is a key difference in today's IP-VPN QoS solution versus our offerings in the past."  Hetherington added that the increase in usage of Voice over Internet Protocol, amongst major Caribbean corporations necessitated a robust solution to manage many different applications via one data "pipe."

MPLS technology optimizes data network efficiency by enabling "labeling" of data packets according to their application, and assigning various priorities to different types of data.  Every customer using MPLS solutions such as IP-VPN QoS from Cable & Wireless can define the applications most crucial to their business, so that they are prioritized in the IP network.  Prior to MPLS, getting greater speed and performance from data networks meant purchasing more bandwidth - and even then, networks provided "best effort" with no guarantees.  With today's launch, Cable & Wireless networks can better utilize existing bandwidth, reducing the cost per unit.  C&W's data networks are now working smarter, rather than just bigger.

"We are very pleased to be the only company in Jamaica to offer an island-wide solution with the cost-savings, performance, and reliability provided by our new IP-VPN QoS solution and the MPLS network.  And, we are enthusiastic about the possibilities that will evolve for our customers' corporate networks, now that we have the MPLS groundwork in place," said Lloyd Distant, Vice President for Business Solutions.

The move to MPLS technology transforms Cable & Wireless' data networks to be entirely Internet Protocol (IP)- based, so that they speak a common language that easily connects with hundreds of existing and future applications.  The move to an IP-based architecture also enables easy global connectivity and offers heightened security via data encryption.

According to John Mazur, research director at Gartner Inc.'s telecommunications practice, "MPLS promises features that will revolutionize carrier network infrastructure and enable enhanced broadband service capabilities.  Network service providers are embracing MPLS as the architectural cornerstone to converge their disparate transport networks and drive new service offerings."  (mfaforum.org, August 2006)

According to Senior Vice President, Data Services, Cable & Wireless Caribbean Enrique Camacho, the company has invested over US$10 million in delivering the IP-VPN solution over the new MPLS infrastructure, and will continue to invest in training for technical and sales staff to support the solution.  "MPLS is a technology that we deployed in order to satisfy our customers' requirements for bandwidth, Quality of Service (QoS), and flexible routing between customers' premises.  Additionally, our MPLS network will allow a more efficient implementation of business applications, which will require our professional teams to partner with each customer to deliver the requirements for that specific business."

In order to support MPLS-based customer solutions, sales staff and technical teams are going through major training programs across all islands where C&W operates.  Several engineers will receive globally recognized IP-certification -- a significant investment in the technical community in the Caribbean, and in individual careers.

Cable & Wireless' MPLS-based offerings such as IP-VPN QoS are unique in the Caribbean in that they are supported locally, and are easily scalable, due to their all-IP architecture.