The Financial Times chooses state of the art IP networking technology from Cisco to integrate both voice and data networks

Cisco Systems has today announced a deal with the Financial Times to implement a data network with voice capabilities to support its editorial and business process. This new network will increase the data transfer rates for all users by a factor of between seven and ten, whilst delivering additional functionality.

At its 1,000 user site in central London, the Financial Times needed to update its existing ATM based network, which was unreliable and could not scale to future requirements. Cisco was chosen over three major competitors to install the new network and integrate to the rest of Pearson's primary processing hubs across the world.

Edd Scrine, Head of IT Operations at the Financial Times said, "We chose to work with Cisco on this major project due to its expertise in designing and installing resilient and scaleable networks in the newspaper industry. Cisco's developments in the integration of voice and data across a single network will give us the capability to reduce telephony costs and integrate the two medium."

John Donovan, Sales Manager for the Media industry at Cisco UK said, "The Financial Times has identified a move towards integrated voice technology as part of its business strategy and buying a network that could cope now for the future is the most sensible route."

Network staff employed by the Financial Times are Cisco certified which allows them to support and maintain the existing WAN routers and will consequently seamlessly manage the new LAN. "This was another reason for choosing Cisco. There are comparatively more people out there with Cisco skills than we were able to find to maintain our old ATM network" continued Scrine.

Technical information

The solution provides the architecture for an integrated voice, data and video system. This caters for a potential 2,500 users initially delivering data services, then at the beginning of 2001 telephony devices will be incorporated into the single IP network. The system is based on the voice capable 6509 Catalyst switches.

The Multilayer Switch Feature Card, MSFC, for the Catalyst 6500 Family delivers high performance multilayer switching and network services for Enterprise environments. It is a Cisco IOS router in a compact package, and when used in combination with the PFC provides intelligent multilayer switching for the Catalyst 6500 family in a single slot solution. Additional IOS services such as multicast support, security, QoS enablers, such as RSVP and Weighted Fair Queuing, as well as accounting and traffic management are also provided.

About The Financial Times
The Financial Times, recognised worldwide for its authoritative, accurate, and analytical reporting, is firmly established as one of the world's leading English language newspapers. With a daily circulation of over 465,000 and a readership of more than one million people, the Financial Times is available in 140 countries throughout the world.

The FT's internet partner, FT.com, is one of the world's leading international business information websites. It provides corporate audiences, with the very best general news and analysis and specialist company and market information and financial data. FT.com attracts over 1.7 million unique visitors each month and generates over 33 million monthly page views, making it the most-visited commercial news site in the UK and among the world's most significant sources of business news on the Internet.

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