The BP Oil arm of British Petroleum Co Plc has, as reported briefly (CI No 1,989) handed over its international data networking requirements to British Telecommunications Plc which is using a combination of Global Networking Services and Syncordia Corp staff to handle the contract. British Telecom announced the contract, the value of which remains undisclosed, as something of a coup – although everyone that wanted to has known about it for three or four months now – but the arrangement raises questions about how many users want full, combined facilities management of voice and data.
Mistake
The deal illustrates how British Telecom is re-moulding Syncordia now that it seems likely to remain a wholly-owned British Telecom subsidiary, rather than a consortium. One example of this is the fact that BP Oil’s contract is not with Syncordia, but with British Telecom itself, and the single point of contact with the operator will be through a British Telecom customer support centre in the UK, which British Telecom says will be supported by Syncordia’s multilingual Customer Support Centre in Paris. A British Telecom spokeswoman said that it is a mistake to think of Syncordia as a network: rather it is being positioned as the part of British Telecom that handles global facilities management. The much vaunted circuit-switched Syncordia network, is being re-integrated into British Telecom as one of its network offerings. In fact, the British Telecom press statement about the order is very careful not to refer to the Syncordia network, instead plumping for the phrase the backbone network – managed by Syncordia. So, looking at the BP Oil contract, those sites that need better than 48Kbps data access will be connected directly to the Syncordia-managed backbone, according to Mike Keen, BP’s manager of integrated network services. The smaller branch offices will use Global Networking Services as a lower cost, lower access method to the same backbone.
Having operated as a commercial company answerable to shareholders for eight years now, British Telecommunications Plc has an enormous advantage over most of its continental counterparts, most of which are still state monopolies run for the greater glory of their managers and to provide their state masters with a steady stream of cash to squander, when it talks business with potential multinational customers, but despite that advantage, the company is finding it an uphill struggle to win those giant contracts that give the names Global Networking Services and Syncordia their ring. But it does have some IBM Europe operations under its belt, and has finally landed the big British Petroleum fish. Chris Rose reports.
Local area networks at 11 BP sales offices, manufacturing and refinery sites across the UK, France, Germany, Belgium, Italy, Switzerland and Sweden will be directly connected, while offices in another 20 countries, including Hong Kong, will get the Global Networking Services treatment. Exactly how the separate packet switched and circuit switched networks will be melded together is up to British Telecom, says Keen. Despite Syncordia’s ability to carry speech, data and video, there are no immediate plans to carry speech across the network: partly, it’s a question of hoary old regulatory restrictions preventing Syncordia offering switched speech in many countries, but also, says Keen we are quite comfortable with our existing leased analogue circuits for voice. If this attitude is widely held, it is a blow to companies like Syncordia that aim to pull the whole lot together. Stripping the deal back to the basics, it is the kind of network that Global Networking Services could have handled by itself if its circuits ran a bit faster – in fact, says Keen, the company looked at using only Global Networking Services, but the hybrid solution clinched the deal because it can handle high capacities dynamically, so that the company has to pay only for the bandwidth it uses.
Frame Relay
Given British Telecom’s plans to speed Global Networking Services and introduce international
2Mbps Frame Relay access in the near future, it is debatable how many similar deals will be struck after this one. British Telecom points out that the oil company will be able to exploit Syncordia’s single point of billing, but even that advantage is being whittled away British Telecom announced earlier this year that its Paris-based Customer Support Eurocentre provides a 24-hour, Europe-wide, multilingual hotline. Still, the basic premise of facilities management – that companies want to concentrate on their core business and not on their data networks, has been proved true in the case of BP Oil. Moreover, British Telecom managed to see off a rival bid from AT&T Co. According to Keen, the British company convinced BP of its superior ability to find its way around the European minefield populated with dinosaur state monopolies jealously guarding their restrictive practices – and its understanding of the oil business – the comfort factor as Keen calls it.
