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Hughes Expands Managed Network Services for African Development Bank

April 2, 2013

Hughes Network Systems, LLC announced that it was awarded a contract by the African Development Bank (AfDB), with headquarters in Abidjan, Cote d'Ivoire and operating from its Temporary Relocation Agency in Tunis, Tunisia, to expand managed satellite services for the AfDB and also to provide MPLS connectivity in the region.

AfDB has been a Hughes managed services customer since 2008, employing a primary communications network of broadband satellite terminals installed in 32 AfDB field offices throughout Africa. The expansion contract calls for Hughes to provide MPLS circuits at four AfDB sites, with backhaul (STM1) services to Tunisian headquarters from a teleport in Germany. Major applications include SAP, VoIP, video conferencing and high-speed Internet access.

"Hughes has been a valued managed services provider to AfDB for many years," said David Wu , Director, at AfDB. "Their superior pro-active monitoring and field services have earned my trust. My team can call on one trusted source which allows them to focus on our core competency -- banking IT. We count on the continued support of Hughes and plan to integrate Hughes into our portfolio of telecommunications service providers we present to our clients."

Kamran Givpoor, vice president of Global Managed Services at Hughes, said, "We are proud to have earned AfDB's trust and to be chosen as a valued partner in meeting their entire wide area network needs."

AfDB has stringent requirements for their network including: high availability; uniform SLA and QoS offerings; a single vendor to provide full turnkey managed services and ongoing system engineering, installation and field maintenance; monthly reporting, statistics and quarterly reviews on usage and performance; and 24 x 7 multi-lingual help desk.