Batelco and Bahrain Islamic Bank (BIB) announced a major deal that will see the telecom service provider replace the bank's network with a state-of-the-art multi protocol label switching (MPLS) network infrastructure.

Batelco's 21st century solution will provide BIB with a managed high bandwidth wide area network (WAN) that ensures complete resiliency of the network, said a report in our sister publication, the Gulf Daily News.

Based on the bank's high level requirements, Batelco's solution has been designed to facilitate data communications between BIB's head office and all its branches and offsite ATMs, on a single fully-meshed Internet protocol virtual private network over MPLS network.

It also facilitates full Internet services for BIB and its branches over the MPLS network.

'Batelco is proud to be working alongside Bahrain Islamic Bank in providing world-class services that will maintain Bahrain's status as a communication hub for the Middle East region,' said Batelco Group general manager media and government relations Ahmed Al Janahi.

Batelco general manager enterprise and government division Dr Abdulla Khalifa Al Thawadi said that Batelco's solution is a one-stop-shop (OSS) scalable solution with the ability to extend the high bandwidth WAN and number of sites in the future as BIB continues to grow and expand its reach nationally and internationally.

'BIB continuously works towards improving its services to its customers. By migrating to Batelco's next generation network (NGN), BIB is able to excel in its ability to deliver efficient and timely information and voice communication between its head office and all its branches and electronic channels,' said BIB's assistant general manager - information technology Mohammed Shafiee.

'Furthermore, with this migration BIB will be able to provide additional and enhanced customer services via its branches and electronic channels based on new technologies that require high bandwidth and highly reliable networks.'

'The migration of BIB's data and voice network to the new state-of-the-art technologies is in line with the bank's modernisation and expansion strategy,' he said.

'We are making considerable investments in information and communication technology to ensure a solid foundation for the bank's products and services,' said Shafiee.

'By providing an OSS service, we hope to encourage other financial organisations in the kingdom to avail of the advanced telecommunication technologies offered by Batelco,' Al Janahi added.

'Investments in Batelco's Data Centre and Internet platform, Batelco's Network Operations Centre (NOC) and Batelco's NGN have all contributed to making Bahrain a powerhouse in the region and the first choice for organisations such as BIB.'

To ensure that optimum service levels are achieved at all times for BIB and its customers, all network traffic is monitored around the clock, every day of the year, from Batelco's NOC.

Batelco aims to achieve performance levels that are inline with the best that are available globally.

'Batelco has invested in excess of $1.4 billion in Bahrain's infrastructure to ensure the availability of world-class products and services for the kingdom. Accordingly, Bahrain's access to world-class communications services is ahead of numerous international markets,' Al Janahi said. – TradeArabia News Service