Equant picks up $35m shipping VPN deal

Shipping company P&O Nedlloyd signed a $35m agreement for VPN facilities from Equant.

The container company will link 150 sites globally and aims to cut costs by 11 per cent each year for the nine years of the contract.

The technology used will be an IP VPN, common now for all sorts of organisations' networking needs, especially those with many sites requiring flexibility.

Equant, a unit of France Telecom, competes to provide such services with the likes of AT&T, BT/Infonet, NTT and Sprint.

Before Christmas Equant surprised many in the industry by appointing a new CEO, although 2004 did see falls in sales, even though the steady weakening of the dollar should have improved matters since the company is listed in the US and reports in dollars.

The communications sector is essential to P&O Nedlloyd's business, said its infrastructure and messaging manager Mark Bulle, but also one of the company's biggest costs. He said Equant was considered the best global provider for its needs.