SingTel (Europe) Ltd makes the right move with City Lifeline

With over 130 years of operating experience, it has played a pivotal role in the development of Singapore as a major communications hub. The Group continues to lead and shape the local digital consumer market and the enterprise ICT market. It has presence in 40 cities over 22 countries across Asia Pacific, Middle East, Europe and USA. Each global office is supported by experienced and qualified local professionals trained in understanding the respective telecommunications environment, including local regulations and procedures. SingTel provides expanded reach and seamless, high-quality services across all regions.

The Group is structured along three key businesses: Group Consumer, Group Digital L!fe and Group ICT: Group Consumer consolidates the Group’s consumer-related functions, including its international business in the emerging markets, which leverages its mobile customer base for optimised outcomes. Group Digital L!fe drives the Group’s efforts to be at the forefront of the digital arena. It strives to bring people together with an innovative and cutting edge mix of digital services. Group ICT provides innovative and comprehensive ICT solutions to the Group’s enterprise customers across geographical boundaries.

SingTel (Europe) Ltd
SingTel’s UK based European support centre employs 18 people and has a large customer base, consisting of a mixture of major corporates and medium sized businesses. The Company operates 24 hours a day to support the Group’s global client base. The Technical Director responsible for the smooth running of SingTel’s European operation is Kevin Waldock, who has been with the Company since 2004. The move to colocation SingTel’s UK operation originally had its data centre in-house and was located in City Road. As Kevin explained, “We had our offices and data centre in the same building. Our lease was coming to an end and that gave us the opportunity to take a fresh look and see the best way forward.” He continued, “We had all the necessary knowledge and experience to build a new data centre from scratch but it would have been a big investment. We decided that the most cost-effective way for the Company would be to have a private suite built to our specific requirements within a professional central London colocation centre.”

The selection process
It was crucial to choose the right supplier. As Kevin explains, “With the scale and importance of the Group, we had to make sure that our decision was right and would ultimately create something that that would not only suit us in the short term but also well into the future.”

The three main selection criteria that Kevin and his teamused were as follows:
• Location
• Reliability and resilience
• Carrier availability

Kevin describes how the process unfolded, “We explored and visited a number of the traditional colocation centres. In the end we found that only City Lifeline had everything we were looking for and offered the best match to our needs.” He added, “With City Lifeline, we could tune the offering to suit both our current and future requirements as things developed for us.”

Location was a key factor in the decision making process and City Lifeline was perfectly placed. “Their location was ideal for our new offices at Bank. It meant our engineers would be able to walk 5 minutes down the road to carry out any work required.” On-going access to the facility was crucial and again City Lifeline came up trumps. ”The facility is just outside the ‘Ring of Steel’ Central London Exclusion Zone, which means that if there is a major emergency alert in London, we could still get to and maintain all our equipment.”

Kevin summed up by saying, “City Lifeline offered a unique solution that no other colocation supplier we saw could match. They could offer both office space and storage right next to our colocation area. City Lifeline came out top on all accounts in our selection criteria and they were also quite keen on price.”

The Installation
City Lifeline worked hand in hand with SingTel to meet the impending deadline, as Kevin explained, “We had a date by which we had to go live and we all worked hard to make sure it was met.” He continued, “We initially designed the private suite working alongside City Lifeline, taking their invaluable advice along the way.

When it came to implementing the project, City Lifeline was like an extension of our own staff, they had a good understanding of the requirements and were very helpful in assisting us to achieve a successful and timely installation as planned.”

On-going relationship
SingTel has been a customer of City Lifeline since September 2008. All of SingTel UK’s operations staff are highly qualified and skilled individuals who look after their systems at City Lifeline on a daily basis.

Kevin commented on the on-going relationship by saying,“Everyone knows each other and both our teams have a good understanding of our respective operations.” He continued, “There is no doubt the longevity and continuity of the City Lifeline staff has added value to our own operations over our time in the facility.”

“We have seen many improvements to the site. It shows that money has been continually invested back into the business. Examples of the most recent upgrades are the installation of twin generators, operating to N+N standards and the new fingerprint recognition security system. These mean we can all rest a little bit easier knowing that the power, cooling and site are even more secure.”

Futures
SingTel is a successful Company and has a clear view of its future. As Kevin explains, “Our mission is to be Asia’s largest and best ICT experience provider. Structures and technologies are converging and moving away from the traditional communications model to more of a managed ICT services environment.” He ended, “These are exciting times for us all. We are very happy with City Lifeline and I look forward to their continued support to help SingTel’s UK operations meet our corporate objectives.”

SingTel private suite technical specification
• Private Suite, 600 sqft area
• Biometric access control
• Configured as technical space, storage and engineers’ office
• 120 amps electrical allocation, both 230Vac and 48Vdc
• N+N power, N+1 cooling
• In-suite FM200 fire suppression
• VESDA fire detection linked to City Lifeline Security

City Lifeline’s main Benefits
• Easy-access central London location
• Proven reliability and resilience
• High carrier availability
• Customer satisfaction levels
• Availability of NOC office and storage space
• Knowledge and experience
• Staff longevity and continuity
• Continual investment into the facility