AUGUST 21, 2006 -- AT&T Inc. (Search for AT&T) has announced a new optical services contract with Evanston Northwestern Healthcare (ENH), an academic health system comprising three hospitals and 65 medical offices and facilities. Evanston Northwestern Healthcare is located in Chicago's northern suburbs.
Under the terms of the five-year contract, AT&T will deliver a SONET ring, which is an optical-fiber network backbone, and GigaMAN service, which is a dedicated fiber-optic Ethernet service. Together, these services will enable ENH to open a new data center, thereby converting the existing facility into a backup data location for added security and increased redundancy of the ENH network.
The expanded bandwidth and increased reliability, via the converged network infrastructure, will ensure constant access to the network's critical applications and directory of patient records. Additionally, the optical network will enable ENH to continue to provide highly available voice and data connectivity to hospitals and medical offices.
"We are virtually a paperless healthcare institution, so constant access to our voice and data communications is essential to our operations," explains Tom Smith, CIO of Evanston Northwestern Healthcare. "The solution provided by AT&T safeguards against detrimental service outages by delivering increased uptime for our network and core applications, enabling our staff to focus on our number one priority - delivery of excellent patient care."
For more information about AT&T, visit www.att.com.