Mumbai: Telstra Corporation Ltd today announced the launch of its new global IP virtual private network (VPN) service. This is an extension of its private IP product that was launched two years ago, and has since taken over 40 per cent of the domestic IP-VPN market.

A press release issued by the Australian telecommunications and information services company said the global solution is founded on the latest IP-VPN backbone technology, and uses multi protocol label switching (MPLS) to extend the company''s domestic private IP service (TPIPs) to over 50 countries around the world, including Hong Kong, Singapore, Shanghai, Auckland and San Francisco.

TPIPs has 500 customers in Australia, making it the country''s most sought-after private IP service.

Telstra executive director of Data Network Services, Mr Paul Geason, said, "We believe the demand for this new global service offering will be very strong, especially for companies headquartered in the Asia-Pacific region. US and European companies will also be able to use the service to connect offices across the Asia-Pacific region in a customised enterprise IP network solution.

"Telstra''s IP Solutions customers in Australia will be able to easily and seamlessly extend their private enterprise IP-VPNs to connect overseas offices or establish secure extranet connectivity with overseas partners, suppliers or customers virtually anywhere in the world."

The existing value-added features and capabilities of Telstra''s IP Solutions suite of products, including managed internet firewall, content filtering and hosted e-mail, will be available on the new global IP-VPN offering.

Mr Geason said the service offered customers IP connectivity within a secure, non-public internet with Class of Service (CoS) settings to suit a wide range of applications traffic, including corporate e-mail, Web-based intranet applications, mission-critical enterprise applications or jitter-intolerant voice over IP (VoIP) and video real-time traffic types.

"As with TPIPs, Service Level Agreements will be a standard part of the offering, providing customers committed performance standards across the global IP-VPN backbone," he said.

The service, available from January 2003, is underpinned by the network infrastructure and IP networking capabilities of REACH, the leading Asian IP backbone and services operator, and the global IP-VPN enterprise service capabilities of Infonetäâ and TelstraClearäâ, Telstra''s majority-owned number two ranked full service telecommunications provider in NZ.