AT&T announced plans to invest $1 billion in 2008 in its global network, representing a 33 percent increase over last year's enterprise investment and more than double its investment in 2006. AT&T said it is accelerating its efforts to: 1) extend its global network reach and capacity; 2) globalize its portfolio of business services and 3) embed the latest utility computing and other technologies in the network so that companies can deliver real-time applications to their customers, suppliers and partners.
AT&T said key elements of its 2008 spending include:
- New subsea fiber optic cable capacity to Japan and Asia -- including increased investments in multiple under sea cable systems into South East Asia and Australia, investment in several subsea cable system upgrades to significantly grow capacity on multiples routes in the Caribbean, including Puerto Rico, as well as subsea investments on existing cables servicing India and the Middle East.
- New core MPLS routers in Europe, Asia and the U.S., and the expansion of access to AT&T's global network with new or additional MPLS based IP network access nodes in Europe (Paris, Moscow), the Middle East (Kuwait), India (New Delhi, Kolkata), Japan, Asia (Seoul, Shanghai, Singapore), and Central America (Guatemala).
- New network-to-network connections to extend network reach into high growth markets in Asia Pacific (India, Australia), Eastern Europe (Russia, Kyrgyzstan, Belarus, Mongolia) and South America.
- Enhanced Ethernet network capabilities with the rollout of a global virtual private local area network solution, initially in the U.S., Europe and Asia Pacific. In 2008 AT&T plans to make these services available in 14 cities -- Frankfurt, London, Brussels, Paris, Amsterdam, Stockholm, Dublin/Cork, Milan, Madrid and Zurich in Europe; and Hong Kong, Sydney, Singapore, Tokyo in Asia Pacific. By year-end 2008, AT&T expects to have an Ethernet footprint in 39 countries.
- Adding DSL as an emerging access alternative to China, Finland, Norway and Saudi Arabia. By year-end, DSL will be available as an access alternative in 21 countries.
- Increasing data center hosting capacity with an additional 180,000 square feet of global capacity by mid 2009 throughout the 38 data centers AT&T has deployed globally. Expansion targets in 2008 will include space augmentation in Singapore, Amsterdam, Boston and Dallas.
- New application performance management tools to help companies manage and monitor their networks and services online, giving them greater control and flexibility.
- Integrating and developing unified communications capabilities from the recent acquisition of Interwise, a global provider of Web-based and audio conferencing services to accelerate AT&T's move into the unified communications space.
- Integrating the global network operations and processes acquired through AT&T's recently expanded networking agreement with IBM, thus enabling greater scope and scale than ever before.
- Offering global IP-based audio-conferencing services with in-country dial-in access from more than 140 countries, with in-language support.
