Equant aims for GPRS users

Equant has started working with GPRS mobile network operators overseas to offer 2.5G data access to users of its wireline corporate VPN services.

The first offering will target users in France, the U.K., Belgium and Russia, and is the result of a network interconnection partnership with U.K.-based Orange, Equant’s sister company under corporate parent France Telecom Group. Equant is in talks with several other Eiropean GORS carriers and hopes to launch the service, branded GPRS Access, in a half dozen more countries later this year, said Gopi Gopinath, senior vice president of data and IP products at Equant.

Equant is also in the early phases of talking to GPRS carriers in the U.S. about the service, and Gopinath said he expects it to become available in the U.S. on a slightly later timeline. In addition, he said Equant hopes to have at least one interconnection agreement with a U.S. CDMA 1X RTT network operator later this year, but added, “We’re not really focusing on CDMA right now.”

Gopinath said GPRS carriers were not immediately sold on the idea of being just another feature on a wireline carrier’s service, but Equant convinced them to participate by showing them that it would ultimately increase the data traffic on their networks.

Equant users can use the carrier’s existing Equant Access Companion interface to install and use GPRS Access, and no changes to existing corporate VPNs are necessary.