Kings Transport in top gear with new WAN

Kings Transport, a major Australian metropolitan transport and logistics provider, has chosen new-generation networks provider Uecomm to replace its existing MPLS network with a metro ethernet WAN delivering greater scalability, reliability and flexibility for the business.

Kings signed a five-year contract to deliver the network infrastructure required to support its business as it continues to grow. Commencing business in 1991 with just two vehicles, Kings now shows no sign of slowing, boasting more than 1500 vehicles and offices in all mainland capital cities.

Uecomm will deliver an ethernet WAN connecting Kings Transport’s 15 sites nationally including a 20 Mbps fibre connection to its head office in Notting Hill and a mixture of ADSL and SHDSL technologies to its other sites providing 2 and 4 Mbps capacity. This is a minimum three-fold increase in capacity from the existing 512 Kbps Kings has with its current service.

As part of the contract, Uecomm designed dual medium redundancy into the network with real-time data replication and recovery. Kings also opted for a fully managed service including proactive network management from Uecomm’s 24/7 Network Operations Centre to ensure maximum resiliency for the business.

“The core driver for our upgrade to an ethernet WAN was the business benefits we could achieve with a network that delivered more capacity, greater resiliency and was easily scalable to meet our future needs,” said Kings Transport General Manager IT David Oliver.

“We have been able to increase our capacity from just 512 Kbps to between 2 and 4 Mbps, which will allow us to significantly improve our business efficiencies as well as to trial new bandwidth-hungry applications such as videoconferencing and voice over IP which simply could not have been possible with our old network.

“Further, with the ability to replicate our core data in real time from all our sites to our disaster recovery site, we will have much greater resilience and will be better protected in the event of disaster,” he said.

With a fleet of over 1500 vehicles on the road at any given time, Kings required a solution that would allow its staff access to the network to improve productivity for its remote teams. The existing network and its restricted capacity and flexibility limited Kings’ options to deliver remote working options to its staff, which will now be possible with the Uecomm solution.

Kings Transport also operates a number of satellite sites for some of its major clients. On the previous network, these sites needed to connect in via a VPN. The new ethernet WAN has allowed these sites to be included in Kings’ core network, producing greater working efficiencies and outcomes for Kings’ customers.