Direct Line hangs up on BT and C&W for Fibernet ATM

NEWS UK insurance firm Direct Line has replaced its BT and Cable and Wireless leased line circuits with an ATM (Asynchronous Transfer Mode) managed network from Fibernet. Phil Pamplin, infrastructure development manager at Direct Line, said the company needed more bandwidth and a scalable system. Pamplin said: "We now have 25 times the bandwidth for the same price we paid for the leased lines. Reliability has also been improved considerably and although leased lines are reliable, if it (leased line) goes down you lose the service." He said the number of problems on the network has been reduced, while the final bill was substantially cheaper than BT. Nigel Pitcher, marketing director at Fibernet, who will manage the 155Mbps system for three years, said: "Direct Line wanted the ability to move from its mainframe centric system to a client/server based network. Not only will this let them have the scalable network required allowing them to grow in line with the business, it also allows more customers to dial into the call centres without the need of paying for more leased lines." The infrastructure will link Direct Line's ten call centres and eight regional offices across the UK via Fibernet's fibre optic network.