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By Tony Hallett, 7 September 1999 06:15

NEWS Racal Telecom is touting an IP (Internet Protocol)-based service that promises to bring together companies' voice and data traffic and at the same time cut costs by as much as 30 per cent. The service, dubbed OneLink, is born out of collaboration with networking giant, Cisco, and will be available from October. So far, the only customer is electrical retailer, Miller Brothers. It has been made possible by upgrading Racal's 7,500km UK backbone network to 40Gbits. Future expansion of this 'supercore' DWDM (Dense Wave Division Multiplexing) network is planned in the next six months. In an exclusive video interview with Silicon.com, Racal MD, Martin Lea, claimed IP is now the protocol of choice given the growth of the Internet. He denied it is premature to put voice-over IP for corporate customers, even though a number of large operators are still only really dipping their toes in this market and saying roll-outs are a year away. Moreover, Racal claims OneLink allows customers to prioritise traffic, so quality of service is maintained. Stewart Anderton, manager of the network and infrastructure team at Ovum, said: "By putting voice (to the PSTN), corporate data networks, and Internet access through an ISP over a single pipe, companies can reduce cost of access, and that will always be appealing." He added that putting voice and data over a managed IP backbone is relatively still in its infancy, but it's much more reliable than using a non-managed environment such as the Internet. Racal's Lea said OneLink will initially be targeted at medium- to large-sized companies, with between 1,000 and 10,000 employees. He called this part of the market the "least competitive", because it is often neglected.