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MTS to provide Shared Services Canada network

Shared Services Canada, which is integrating a number of IT and telecommunications services across the federal government, has picked Manitobaโ€™s phone company as its IP backbone carrier.

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Manitoba Telecom Services Inc. said Friday it has signed a multi-year contract to provide business IP and switched Ethernet services to SSC.
โ€œItโ€™s a nice present for our sales team before the holdiay,โ€ Chris Peirce, MTSโ€™ Ottawa-based chief corporate officer, said in an interview.
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He said the three-year deal could be worth $55 million over the life of the contract, which has an optional three-year extension.

MTS said the Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) managed service will help SSC deliver on its mandate to improve the efficiency, reliability and security of the governmentโ€™s IT infrastructure.

It will connect up to 850 sites across the country through IP routing via a converged high performance network that will offer voice, video and data services.ย 
Until recently departments had been contracting with carriers separately, but Shared Services Canada has a mandate to unify a number of IT services. Peirce said MTS is already serving a number of departments; with this deal it will serve them all. Work will start almost immidiately in switching those departments not with MTS to its network, he said.
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By implementing an IP-based solution, voice, data and multimedia applications can be converged onto a single private network, simplifying the ability for network development and providing a higher overall return on infrastructure investment, the carrier said.

This, combined with the benefits of a switched Ethernet solution, will allow smooth and dependable sharing of information and applications across multiple LANs, ย it added.

โ€œWe have a long history of working with the federal government and will now have an even bigger role in creating greater efficiency in their network environment,โ€ ย Dean Prevost, president of MTSโ€™ Allstream division, which offers business services and will actually be the federal provider. โ€œWeโ€™re very pleased that our solutions fit the governmentโ€™s objective of efficiently using technology to increase productivity.โ€

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