Chinese-owned carrier launches SD-WAN into European market
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Chinese-owned carrier launches SD-WAN into European market

Chinese-owned carrier CITIC Telecom CPC has launched a software defined wide area network (SD-WAN) service across its European network.

The service, to be branded as TrueConnect Hybrid, will be offered across Europe as part of a global solution. The company last year announced a plan to expand through central Asia, Russia and Europe, and it bought a European company, Linx Telecommunication, to integrate into the operation.

James Halberstadt, who has joined CITIC Telecom CPC as European managing director, said: “Multiple application deployment and operational models, short lead times and challenging service level agreements for mission-critical services that are now deployed in private and public cloud require a new hybrid SD-WAN approach.”

He added: “Legacy fixed WANs cannot efficiently or effectively cope with the digital transformation demands of modern business.”

CITIC Telecom CPC is owned by China’s vast state investment company, CITIC – formerly the China International Trust Investment Corporation – which is China’s major investor in assets at home and round the world. Set up in 1979, it now invests in 56 businesses.

Last October, at Capacity Europe in London, CEO Stephen Ho told Capacity that CITIC Telecom CPC was aiming for more than 140 points of presence in 130 countries.

Today the company said that the SD WAN offering is “designed to address the needs of today’s distributed enterprises for more flexible, open and cloud-based WAN technologies”. TrueConnect Hybrid virtualises the topology of enterprise network infrastructure, integrating multiple access technologies – including private WAN networks, mobile networks, and internet links – into a single active-active hybrid WAN.

“Our professional service teams right across Europe can also customise the solution to fit each customer’s unique business needs,” said Halberstadt, who was at Interoute until the end of 2017, and before that at Reliance Globalcom – now Global Carrier Xchange – and then Easynet.

He said the service would benefit from “anticipated business growth via opportunities stemming from China’s One Belt One Road Initiative”. Enterprise customers “can readily enjoy the benefits of cutting-edge network virtualisation and gain new levels of business agility and cost-effectiveness”, he added.





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