Helly Hansen finds MPLS way to plain sailing on global communications

The company has set up a managed private IP Network to provide secure and reliable connections between its HQ in Oslo, Norway and seven other major sites in Canada, China, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, the UK and the US. Helly Hansen supports its more than 700 employees in 17 countries from the Norway data centre, so the network is business critical, providing for everything from hosted ERP and associated applications to video conferencing services. That being the case, Verizon Business installed two routers and dual access lines, dramatically increasing Helly Hansen’s network capacity to support current and projected voice and data needs. “We run a whole host of services and business tools out of our Norwegian office which all of our other offices around the world depend on day and night,” says Helly Hansen CIO Einar Lonnum. “The managed IP network gives us peace of mind in terms of both service level agreements and a helpdesk service that actively monitors the WAN lines 24/7.” Lonnum adds that the offering is even more attractive because of Verizon’s communications tools, which enable real-time interaction. And it liked Verizon VoIP (voice over IP) service, which it’s now trialling at its HQ with a view eventually to deploying it globally. Says Lonnum: “We already had a MPLS network in place but decided to re-tender. Verizon Business was able to offer us twice the bandwidth, the best technical support and a dedicated account team, all at an extremely competitive rate. It was no contest really.”