PARIS, August 28, 2012 /PRNewswire/ --

NTT Communications, a member of the NTT Group and the number one Fortune Global 500 telecommunications group, has been a loyal supplier since 1998 to Agence France-Presse (AFP), a global news agency delivering fast, worldwide news. Through its ability to deliver a quality and responsive service, NTT Communications has consistently been able to meet the demands of AFP's increased flow of multimedia-rich content through its low-latency, high speed network.

Jean-Pierre Scagnelli, Infrastructure and Engineering Manager at AFP, explains the reasons for choosing and staying with NTT Communications, "The evolution of multimedia rich content has generated an increasingly high flow of traffic for us. NTT Communications guarantees us commitment, quality and support. They fully meet our expectations and really stand out from their competitors with a professional approach at all times."

AFP's core business has evolved over the last few years to allow for and incorporate the growing need of images and videos of its customers onto the AFP network. AFP now holds a database of over 8 million archival photographs and more than 2,000 are being created every day. There are also 30 production units in France and around the world which make around 500 news videos every month. An infrastructure that ensures a sufficient flow rate and high availability is a key requirement; multimedia takes up a lot of bandwidth and needs to stream through the network. NTT Communications understands this and provides a responsive network to ensure AFP can run its business and pass data effortlessly between the various sites in Asia.

NTT Communications connects AFP to its Asian network hub in Hong Kong, which gives high speed connection to its US offices. NTT has also introduced an Ethernet interconnect solution from its sites to the central site based in Hong Kong. AFP wanted to keep with a single routing solution so NTT Communications developed its network to allow it to maintain a balanced flow and to keep up with the exponential growth in multimedia.

Each year, AFP reviews its contract to ensure best performance on the network and to compare it against its competitors to help control costs. AFP remain happy that NTT Communications' services are being provided at a fair and competitive rate and has always renewed its contract.

Along with providing the network, NTT Communications is frequently called upon to assist AFP in a range of projects; IP telephony, equipment replacement and the installation of WiFi in offices. Video in particular has become increasingly more important in the last three years and will continue to grow and demand high connectivity rates in the coming years.

"We have access to service teams in Paris on a 24/7 basis and on-site technicians are available to our Asian offices during the implementation of new solution techniques." Scagnelli continues talking about the collaboration over the years, "We appreciate the professionalism of NTT Communications and quality of network service and we look forward to working on future projects with NTT on the African continent."

Olivier Micheli, Country Manager of NTT Europe in France says, "We are pleased and proud to continue providing high performing network and security services to AFP, knowing that we contribute to the transfer of information on worldwide, current events as they happen."

Editors Notes:  This is a translation from a French press release.

About NTT Communications Corporation

NTT Communications provides consultancy, architecture, security and cloud services to optimize the information and communications technology (ICT) environments of enterprises. These offerings are backed by the company's worldwide infrastructure, including leading global tier-1 IP network, Arcstar Universal One™ VPN network reaching over 150 countries, and over 130 secure data centers. NTT Communications' solutions leverage the global resources of NTT Group companies including Dimension Data, NTT DOCOMO and NTT DATA.

For further information, please visit:

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About AFP

AFP is a global news agency delivering fast, accurate and complete video, text, photo, multimedia and graphics on events that make international news. From wars and conflicts to politics, sports, entertainment and major developments in health, science and technology. Its 2,260 employees from 80 different nationalities in 150 countries and in six languages ​​walk the planet, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year to bring news to you.

For further information, please visit:

http://www.afp.com/en

For media enquiries, please contact:
Loïc Bertin
Director of Marketing Alliances
+33-01-47-17-28-30 - +33-06-77-11.16-39
loic.bertin@ntt.eu

Emma Crowe (Media Enquiries)
Marketing Communications Manager - EMEA
NTT Communications
Emma.crowe@ntt.eu
+44(0)7581-315-241

SOURCE NTT Communications