To replace its existing frame-relay network with a metro Ethernet WAN delivering greater scalability, reliability and flexibility for the business, Australia's largest privately-owned removals and storage company, Kent Transport Industries Pty Ltd, has chosen leading new-generation networks provider Uecomm.

The four year $800,000 plus contract involves a fully managed router solution and the delivery of 1:1 uncontested Ethernet services across Kent's entire WAN consisting of its six regional offices in Townsville, Adelaide, Brisbane, Perth, Canberra and NT as well as its major Sydney office and head office in Clayton, Melbourne.

Providing the business with an increased bandwidth of 16Mpbs, up from 2Mbps, a Uecomm fibre optic network will be deployed between the two major offices in Melbourne and Sydney, with the regional offices connected via a mixture of SHDSL, ADSL and E1 links.

The motivation to upgrade to an Ethernet WAN was the business benefits that could be achieved with a more reliable, scalable service with greater capacity, according to Craig Prestt, Kent Transport Industries IT manager.

Mr. Prestt explained: "We were looking for a network infrastructure solution that would provide a higher quality of service across the WAN and that could also support voice, video and data intensive applications".

Kent Transport Industries, with regional warehouses across Australia and its business constantly 'on the move', requires 'live' access to its database to book and track jobs online, as well as to manage storage capacity and movements in its warehouses.

Uecomm's solution, with this in mind, will provide greater resilience by connecting the head office in Clayton with two different Uecomm points-of-presence. The network design will also allow a seamless failover at the head office in case of disaster.

Enabling the business to transfer its hard copy documents to electronic copies, reducing the paper trail and streamlining record keeping and accessing of data, the increased bandwidth from the Uecomm solution will allow Kent to progress with its plans to implement a records management system. The new CRM program and storage area network application will consist of more than 8,000 file transfers per day, which requires fast and reliable access across the entire WAN.

According to Uecomm's director of strategy, Brendan Park, enterprise is increasingly upgrading from legacy frame-relay infrastructure to Ethernet WANs because it is simple to administer, more affordable and easily scalable to meet the needs of any business.