WORLDCOM'S UUNET UNVEILS SOLUTION FOR MANAGING CORPORATE DIAL-UP INTERNET ACCESS
UUNET UK, part of the worlds leading Internet services company and a wholly owned subsidiary of WorldCom, has today announced the first part of a solution designed for large organisations that require dial-up Internet access for their staff. Called Multi-Dial, this new service will provide network managers, finance departments and other decision makers with a more effective way of single sourcing and managing Internet provision for large numbers of mobile workers, branch and remote offices. In the latter part of 1997, UUNET commissioned original research to examine the future of IT management with regard to dial-up Internet access. The "holy grail" for IT departments is to have a flexible and cost effective solution which allows secure access to corporate networks via the Internet. Most of the companies participating wanted to said the key first steps would be to standardise dial-up Internet access, and put some end-user controls and policies in place. It was clear that an ISP could have a role to play in making this transition easier for companies.
Multi-Dial is part of a new strategy for developing a corporate dial-up Internet service to run alongside UUNET's popular PIPEX Dial and share the same highly reliable nationwide network. PIPEX Dial continues to offer an award-winning entry level service for small businesses and professionals. Multi-Dial is designed to meet the requirements of corporates for standardising Internet services for significant numbers of employees that are easy to use, manage and cost control from the perspective of both network/IT managers and finance directors.
Starting from a minimum of 50 users, the service provides network managers with on-line administration and management of end-users. These features will be further enhanced and expanded to include access controls set by the network manager online.
For end-users, the software is pre-configured, offers five company e-mail boxes and support for a variety of access methods including PC, mobile phones and Windows CE handheld PCs.
Billing is simplified with a single sales contact and invoice, with savings on monthly Internet access charges through Multi-Dial's volume discounting. The nation-wide coverage provided by UUNET UK allows access at local phone call charges.
"Where other ISPs offer ' one size fits all' dial up Internet service, we recognise that the requirements of small and large companies are quite different", says Steve Groves, UUNET's Multi-Dial product manager. "Corporate executives recognise the Internet offers real benefits today and will offer more tomorrow. Their objective and ours is to build a solid platform for a future revolution in how the Internet is used both inside and outside the enterprise. With Multi-Dial we are laying the foundation on which value added services like VPNs and extranets can be built".
Multi-Dial is available immediately with further feature improvements planned over the next quarter.
