Brazil’s Correios enters connectivity deal with BT

Brazilian postal operator Correios has awarded a “national connectivity” contract to telecommunications firm BT. The five-year deal – which will see BT connect more than 7,000 sites, including corporate, regional and local offices all over the country – is worth £133.45m, and has been described as a “milestone in the development of BT’s business in Latin America”.

BT said it will provide the operator with “a resilient, agile and flexible service to support the company’s growth, enabling the easy deployment of new site connections and future requirements”.

More precisely, BT will supply Correios with a fully managed WAN (Wide Area Network) solution connecting 6,800 branch offices with low speed satellite links and 285 corporate offices with high speed links integrated to the domestic backbone of BT’s global MPLS (Multi Protocol Label Switching) network. The contract also comprises equipment provision and the implementation, maintenance and operation of Correios’ network, the company confirmed.

José Luiz Alves do Nascimento, coordinator of Correios’ Network Implementation Task Force, said: “Integration is a decisive factor for the success of a company with operations covering a country of continental dimensions. In this context, BT will help Correios improve its position as a provider of reliable solutions to our clients.”

In addition, Sergio Paulo Gallindo, country manager of BT Brazil, said: “This contract with Correios clearly shows that the Brazilian government trusts BT’s solutions, as we continue to expand operations in the country; we had recently signed contracts with Caixa Econômica Federal, one of the largest government-owned financial institutions in Latin America, to connect its data centres with its banking correspondents’ and a second contract to connect lottery outlets in Brazil. We are proud to help the Brazilian government leverage our network solutions to improve its efficiency.”

Correios processes around 35m letters, telegrams and packages on a daily basis. Last year, the company delivered 8.8bn items, across 40m addresses. The operator has a workforce of more than 107,000 employees – of which 55,000 deliver the mail.

Its network consists of 12,000 post offices, an online post office, and 6,500 additional product sale spots.

Last week, Post&Parcel reported that Deutsche Post DHL had signed a Global Innovation Partnership agreement with BT.

The deal will see BT support the DHL Solutions & Innovations (DSI) unit in the development of research projects, to foster innovations and develop new logistic service offerings and technical solutions.