MCI Communications Corp has signed a $600m deal with the Nasdaq stock exchange to upgrade its communications infrastructure, with the aim of doubling its speed and trading capacity. The six-year agreement forms MCI’s largest outsourcing contract to date and it will replace Nasdaq’s current trading system, seeing it through to the next century. The new network will initially be able to handle four billion shares a day, a figure that will eventually double to eight billion a day. The new Enterprise Wide Network II looks set to become one of the world’s largest and most advance intranets, enabling real time trading. Back in October Nasdaq’s share volume climbed to a record 1.37 billion shares traded (CI No 3,279), and as the millennium approaches the market anticipates that figure will rise. Upgrade will happen over an 18-month period, using Digital Equipment Corp Alpha servers and services, and Cisco Systems Inc 7500 series and 1200 Gigabit Switch Routers. At the heart of the network will sit an intelligent node architecture designed by MCI that will transmit data in real time to PC clients. MCI will mange the network from its own operations centre in Cary, New York, and from Nasdaq’s sites at Trumbull, Connecticut and Rockville, Maryland.
