Le Méridien hands €39m network deal to Equant

Equant has won a €39m global network outsourcing deal with hotel chain Le Méridien.

An IP virtual private network (VPN) will connect 60 sites in more than 17 countries around the world and all the hotel's core business applications will be hosted at an Equant data centre.

The move will support future plans by Le Méridien to run converged voice and data over the network to its four reservations call centres.

The deal will cut costs for Le Méridien by consolidating its network services to one supplier.

John Hogan, director of technical services at Le Méridien, said there was an aggressive timetable for the move presented a major challenge but that staff now have access to all of the group's enterprise applications over a single secure connection.

Howard Ford, president of sales and marketing at Equant, said in a statement: "The continuity between the network and the applications infrastructure is vital, since multinational businesses are increasingly dependent on remotely hosted applications to conduct their business transactions."