BOREHAMWOOD, U.K. -- Redstone plc, the national communications services provider, today announces an extension of its strategic agreement with British Telecommunications PLC.

Under the terms of the new Network Management Services Agreement BT Wholesale will continue to operate and manage the Redstone telecommunications network which was transferred to BTW as part of the original partnership announced in April 2002. This new Agreement both extends the term of the contract, to 2012 from 2008, and the range of services being provided to Redstone.

Most significantly, Redstone will launch a range of innovative inbound telecoms services over the course of the summer based on a new intelligent networking platform from Huawei Technologies. This new system will provide customers with a state of the art platform and will include the ability to control call traffic flows and obtain near real-time information via a web-based interface. This allows customers to have a far greater degree of control over their inbound traffic and allows them to respond rapidly to changing circumstances. A pre-launch of these services was recently demonstrated by Redstone at the Telemedia conference in Amsterdam.

The agreement simplifies the tariffing structure, introduces clear cost reduction targets, removes any penalty payments, includes volume commitments at minimum levels for 3 years only and continues to be based around the principle that payment is made on an as used basis. Overall, whilst reducing gross margins in the short term on certain telecoms product lines, the commercial terms should ensure that Redstone can continue to offer its customers attractive pricing over the term of the agreement. The agreement provides considerable flexibility for both parties over the introduction of new services in the future such as voice over IP call routing.

Ian Brown, Redstone CEO, comments, “We are delighted to extend our existing agreement with BTW which is one of the corner-stones of our future growth strategy. The outsourcing of our network to BTW has ensured that Redstone and our customers have benefited from the confidence that comes from the knowledge that our network is being run and managed by the largest and most experienced telecoms operator within the UK. As such it has provided us with a significant competitive advantage whilst allowing Redstone to focus on its core business strengths and product offerings.”

Paul Reynolds, CEO of BT Wholesale said, “The extension of this agreement between Redstone and BTW is a culmination of a successful business partnership first established in 2002. This success has been based on the combination of Redstone’s comprehensive communications service offering and BTW’s expertise in managing telecoms networks. I look forward to continuing our partnership with Redstone.”

BT Group plc

Redstone plc