Hughes Expands Managed MPLS Network for African Development Bank

Hughes Network Systems, LLC announced that it was awarded a contract by the African Development Bank (AfDB) to expand the managed MPLS services it provides to AfDB.

AfDB has been a Hughes managed services customer since 2008, employing a primary communications network of broadband satellite terminals installed at 32 AfDB field offices throughout Africa. In 2013, managed services were expanded to include MPLS circuits at four AfDB sites to headquarters in Abidjan, Ivory Coast from a teleport in Germany. This new 3-year contract calls for expanding MPLS connectivity to an additional seven (7) bank locations including regional resource centers and key field offices. 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, ICT Director at AfDB. "Our vision is to implement a decentralized IT cloud for which high throughput redundant links and reliable connectivity is of critical importance. The Hughes service delivers on all of these with superior in-country support."

Kamran Givpoor, vice president of Global Managed Services at Hughes, said "We are delighted that AfDB has chosen to award Hughes with this MPLS expansion contract. It's a testament to our focus on customer satisfaction and superior service delivery capabilities for the past 7 years delivering end-to-end managed services to AfDB. Hughes looks forward to supporting AfDB in its desire to be a leading ICT innovator in the pan-African region."

AfDB had 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 review on usage and performance; and 24 x 7 multi-lingual help desk.