TeleMedia International, the international subsidiary of Telecom Italia SpA, has beaten British Telecommunications Plc to a six-year contract to develop and manage a Europe-wide private network for Manchester-based Granada Group Plc. under the contract, the Italian will design, operate and manage a private voice and facsimile network for Granada Computer Services International the computer maintenance and leasing subsidiary of Granada International – Granada’s business is built on efficiency and speed of service and they were constantly frustrated by having to rely on the public switched network for their internal communication, said Gabriele Manzi, Telecom Italia’s director of outsourcing – shouldn’t that be insourcing? The new Granada Network will be a private, dedicated network that will make it seem as though they were 10 metres away from each other, even though it may be traversing Europe. Manzi said Telemedia expects to have the Granada network operating on 64Kbps ISDN lines, replacing its 2.4Kbps traditional telephone lines, in three months. Telemedia will then be responsible for the network’s management for six years. Granada contracted the operator for a voice and facsimile network because it already has dedicated data lines, Manzi said, adding that the system proposal provides for the addition of videoconferencing. We will look at the videoconferencing proposition with them this year, Manzi commented.
