Expand Networks and Telkom Win Prestigious Global Telecoms Innovation Award for Wide Area Network Project

ROSELAND, New Jersey, June 8, 2011 /PRNewswire/ --

- Vendor and Telco Collaboration Recognized by Global Telecoms Business for Managed WAN Optimisation Service at Retail Giant SPAR Group

Expand Networks, http://www.expand.com, the leader in optimizing WANs for branch office consolidation and virtualization, together with Africa's largest Telco provider, Telkom SA (http://www.telkom.co.za/), have been jointly honoured at the Global Telecoms Business Innovation Awards ( http://www.globaltelecomsbusiness.com/?LS=EMS532462) 2011, winning the prestigious prize for Wide Area Network Optimization.

Telkom and Expand Networks' winning project successfully deployed a managed WAN optimization service for retail giant SPAR Group ( http://www.spar.co.za/HomePage1.aspx) , improving performance levels, reducing latency and easing congestion of satellite links that had compromised the efficiency of SPAR's applications and services.

The collaboration on the SPAR project beat off hundreds of nominations for the industry's most innovative projects that were received from the readers of Global Telecoms Business in 2011.

Elie Barr, CEO of Expand Networks, explains the project: "Fast and resilient communications across SPAR's supply chain is critical to ensuring high levels of service and convenience are delivered to customers. To optimize the bandwidth between SPAR's headquarters, distribution centres and 900 stores in South Africa, we developed a managed optimisation service with Telkom to mitigate WAN latency and congestion over satellite links.

"Results were immediate; a number of the group's top retailers quickly gave very positive responses to the solution as user experience improved dramatically."

Mel Lachenicht, Executive, Telkcom Business Solutions, Telkom SA, added, "Expand Networks provided a good solution to the problem due to its telco-class performance, ease of management and configuration, as well as its cost and ability to scale."

For Expand Networks, it is the second consecutive year it has been honoured by Global Telecoms Business, receiving in 2010 an award for Satellite Service Innovation.

Barr continued, "We are all delighted to receive this award which demonstrates the value and transformational qualities of network optimisation.

"The award also chimes with our own continued commitment in working closely with our global telco partners in helping to better manage the flow of traffic and optimize communications offerings to organizations across the globe."

The winners were announced during a gala dinner at the Park Lane Hotel in London last night. In presenting the Awards, Alan Burkitt-Gray, editor of Global Telecoms Business, commented: "This is the fifth time we've run the Global Telecoms Business Innovation Awards and this year we saw more nominations, from a greater range of operators and vendors, than ever before.

"We started the Awards in order to celebrate what the industry is doing, making a huge difference to the world, to all of us in business and as consumers.

"This is a sure sign the industry is working harder and harder to deliver exciting and innovative services to customers worldwide. We've seen a greater number of nominations for services directly aimed at businesses and consumers, designed to give them better services and make their lives easier.

"Congratulations to all of this year's award winners and to Expand and Telkom for the Wide Area Network Innovation award."

Global Telecoms Business magazine, which is read by the industry leaders in the telecommunications industry worldwide, is part of the Euromoney Institutional Investor PLC group.