By Telecom Lead Team: Alcatel-Lucent has been selected by
Tampnet of Norway to enhance the flexibility of its communications network
serving oil and gas exploration and production facilities both offshore and
onshore in and around the North Sea.
Under the agreement Alcatel-Lucent will provide its 7750
Service Router and 7705 Service Aggregation Router portfolio as well as the
5620 Service Aware Manager (SAM) and 5650 Control Plane Assurance Manager
(CPAM), all suited to the demanding requirements of the oil and gas industry due
to their high resilience and performance.
Tampnet’s offshore communications network provides
connectivity for customers’ operations, including remote support to help
automate operations on the platforms. It provides connectivity services for the
Norwegian and UK air traffic control as well as for customers’ administrative
traffic including email, Internet, intranets and other business applications.
Tampnet’s network serves nearly 100 oil and gas platforms
and five onshore locations including Stavanger in Norway and Aberdeen and
London in the UK. With more locations and increasing traffic, Tampnet needed to
update its existing communications network and move to a more efficient
Internet Protocol/Multiprotocol Label Switching (IP/MPLS)-based solution.
Alcatel-Lucent’s IP/MPLS solution will provide speed,
bandwidth and service capabilities needed to ensure operational efficiency
across Tampnet’s expanded network.
“Redundancy and robustness is of great importance
due to the remote locations of the equipment and our customers need a
high-quality communications network to enhance the efficiency of operations.
With new and improved high-capacity data services, Alcatel-Lucent’s IP/MPLS
solution will enable us to serve the oil and gas industry even better,”
said Per Helge Svensson, president of Tampnet.
Tampnet will gain flexibility required to route its
customers’ traffic from the offshore sites back to the onshore facilities. In
case of any undersea fiber cable issues or platform outages, real-time monitoring
of the network will ensure that traffic can swiftly be re-directed to
alternative routes, so that there is no interruption in customer service.
“Alcatel-Lucent has deep-rooted experience in
establishing high-performance, reliable communications networks for customers
such as Tampnet and we are pleased to help the company reduce network
complexity and costs as it expands its business,” said Robert Malm,
managing director of Alcatel-Lucent in the Nordics and Baltics.