Fort Lauderdale, Florida-based Telematics International Inc has announced a contract with the Concert joint venture between British Telecommunictions Plc and MCI Communications Corp to provide Concert with its access and concentration layer wide-area network equipment. The equipment, consisting of Telematics’s packet- and frame-based ACP, Access Communication Processor, and PCP, Programmable Communication Processor, products – will be used for Concert’s Global Managed Data Network. Building on its existing relationship with British Telecom, Telematics is to become Concert’s preferred supplier for access and concentration layer equipment. The company, now a subsidiary of ECI Telecom Ltd, estimates the contract will be worth around $85m over its five-year life, although offsetting this is the fact that it replaces the existing contract with British Telecom, worth about $12m a year. More significantly, Telematics and Concert are to work together on the development of next-generation equipment. According to Graham Skelton, Telematics’ vice-president of network service provider sales some of this equipment will be incorporated into Telematics’ product range, but some will be specific to Concert. Frame Relay concentration equipment will be among the first it develops.
