Equant Named Cisco's Only Global Commerce Specialized Service Provider; Achieves Cisco Multinational Gold Partner Status in Asia Pacific and is Named Cisco Service Provider of the Year in CIS And Russia.

PARIS -- Equant recently gained elite status with Cisco Systems Inc. as the only service provider to achieve Cisco's Channel Partner Global Commerce Specialization status. In addition, Equant was named a Multinational Cisco Gold Partner in Asia Pacific and was named Cisco Service Provider of the Year in CIS and Russia.

This recognition reinforces Equant's strong partnership with Cisco. The Equant network is Cisco's largest Cisco Powered Network (CPN) extending to 140 countries. Cisco technology is deployed throughout the network to provide the foundations for Equant's IP infrastructure. Nine Equant solutions and services are CPN accredited including: IP VPN, IP Dial, VoIP, Internet Direct, Internet VPN, Intrusion Detection Service, Multimedia VPN, Application Infrastructure Provider and ValueNet. The 11-year partnership has seen over $1 billion invested by Equant in Cisco equipment. In addition, Equant manages more than 50,000 customer premises Cisco routers.

"Equant's recent achievements with Cisco reinforces our continued commitment to providing the highest level of service and quality to our customers," said William Priest, senior vice president, Marketing and Partnerships, Equant. "We are very honored by these accolades because we know that they are designations that validate Equant's expertise and capabilities to deliver Cisco-based solutions and services and our status as a recommended Cisco partner."

Only Service Provider to Achieve Global Commerce Specialization Status

Equant is a Global Integration Partner and has been certified as one of only six global Cisco partners and the only service provider to achieve Cisco's Channel Partner Global Commerce Specialization status. In order to achieve this status, Equant was independently audited as being able to offer global and centralized services in defined areas of order management, invoicing, agreements and product delivery logistics.

Equant is also a Cisco Gold Certified Partner in all major Cisco regions. Equant's support experts have attained Cisco Gold Certification in Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Bolivia, Chile, China, France, Hong Kong, Japan, North America, Paraguay, Peru, Russia and CIS, Singapore, Switzerland, United Kingdom and Uruguay. Silver Certification has been attained in Mexico.

Multinational Cisco Gold Certified in Asia Pacific

Equant has been certified Cisco Multinational Gold in the Asia Pacific region. This certification is an extension of the Cisco Channel Partner program. It recognizes partners with the highest level of expertise in selling and supporting Cisco solutions across multiple countries in a region.

"Equant was named a Multinational Gold Partner because of its strong track record in leveraging Cisco products and unique global capabilities," said Gordon Astles, senior vice president of the Asia Pacific region for Cisco. "Equant consistently demonstrates capabilities in meeting the demanding needs of multinational customers in the Asia Pac region and globally."

Service Provider of the Year in CIS and Russia

Equant was named Cisco Service Provider of the Year, Russia and CIS. This award recognizes Equant's merits for great sales volume of user devices among fixed-communication operators. Equant also has once again confirmed a rank of Cisco Gold Partner for system integration, specializing in communication services and IP telephony.

"As a Cisco Gold Partner service provider, Equant has achieved impressive successes, selling more Cisco service provider equipment than any of our other partners in Russia," said Robert Aigee, CEO and director of Operations, Cisco Systems, Russia. "In particular, Equant has achieved much by introducing complex VoIP solutions. By the current commercial and technical parameters, we can count on a favorable and very close partnership with Equant in the future. This award says to Equant: thank you for your excellent figures!"

"Cisco aspires to help its partners achieve success, and this award serves as a recognition of outstanding achievements of Equant for last year," said George Mosolov, the assistant to general director of Cisco Systems in Russia and the CIS.

About Equant

Equant is a recognized industry leader in global communications services for multinational businesses. Equant combines its network expertise with its expanded services capabilities to provide global, integrated and customized communication services to enable its customers' key business processes. Equant serves thousands of the world's top companies, with the industry's most extensive portfolio of communications services and network solutions, including the market-leading IP VPN used by nearly 1,300 global businesses. Equant, a subsidiary of France Telecom, consistently leads industry surveys in corporate user satisfaction.