Mercury Communications Ltd and AT&T Corp have teamed to launch a managed business service to provide a choice of private circuits between the UK and the US. The service includes circuits between 56Kbps and 2Mbps and is designed to provide high levels of service availability. As with Mercury’s other managed bandwidth services, in the event of a cable fault, service is restored over cable, rather than via satellite. The service is basically similar to the TeleConnect service already offered by Mercury. Essentially, there is not much of a difference, the idea is to extend choice, said the company. The service will be operated by both companies. Mercury will call its service Global Link, whereas AT&T will use the name Enhanced IADS Service. The deal with AT&T is really for those customers that particularly want to use AT&T, Mercury said. Users can receive single-end billing at either end. Mercury is offering Global Link customers a waiver on the premium for the UK end of the circuit, while AT&T has promised special price discounts to customers that commit to its service term arrangements.
