MCI Wins IP VPN Contract

READING, U.K. -- MCI (NASDAQ: MCIP) today announced that it has provided CODA, the financial systems specialist, with a fully-managed international Private IP solution. MCI Private IP is a network-based, MPLS VPN service. This solution extends the longstanding successful customer relationship of CODA with MCI.

CODA offers award-winning, best-of-class, unified ledger accounting systems and versatile financial analysis tools that support enhanced performance management in public sector and commercial organizations world-wide. With its headquarters in Harrogate in the United Kingdom, CODA operates 10 business locations in Europe, the Americas and the Asia Pacific region.

"We chose MCI's fully-managed Private IP solution since it allowed us to improve connectivity between the CODA sites," said Richard Hall, IT manager at CODA. "The previous network configuration required all traffic to be routed via our head office at Harrogate. In the event of a network problem in Harrogate, the other offices were prevented from accessing resources. With Private IP, however, we achieved any-to-any connectivity, allowing all traffic to travel point-to-point, greatly improving both reliability and efficiency."

By using MPLS technology, customers can utilise a single connection for all of their network traffic regardless of protocol (Frame Relay, ATM or IP) enabling the transport of packets labeled with a destination route and a Class of Service level. By using MCI Private IP, CODA is realizing a significant increase in network performance as a result of reduced intermediate switching.

"MCI Private IP delivers the ability to intelligently converge and prioritise voice services, enterprise applications, as well as data and video traffic over a single seamless network connection, increasing simplicity and ease of use," said Andrew McGrath, vice president of Marketing for MCI in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA). "MCI's Private IP solution offers CODA the flexibility and scalability to support the dynamic needs of its business, enabling them to implement Class of Service across the connections and allowing them to define the Class of Service required by critical data and allowing it the access to the bandwidth it needs."

MCI Inc.