NEWS Telecom giant BT has signed a deal with employment services firm Manpower to upgrade and manage its worldwide data network.
Under the agreement, the telecommunications company will migrate Manpower's data infrastructure to a wide area network connecting 3,200 locations across 63 countries, BT said in a statement.
Domestic connections will be linked via Digital Subscriber Line service and are in turned hooked up to BT's worldwide multiprotocol label switching (MPLS) network. MPLS, a technology which is catching on the communications industry, provides a way to carry voice, data and video over the same network.
As part of the agreement, BT will be responsible for monitoring both the performance of the network as well as related business applications.
In Asia-Pacific, BT will deploy the network in 12 countries including Hong Kong, India, Philippines, South Korea and Singapore.
The five-year contract is worth $73m (£40m).