AT&T IDs targets of its billion-dollar global capex push

AT&T’s $1-billion in investment in global infrastructure, announced today, is a reflection of multiple global telecom trends, including the move to managed services and the consolidation of server farms in centralized data facilities as well as a general growing demand for bandwidth driven in part by video.

According to Lloyd Salvage, vice president of global segment marketing for AT&T, U.S. multinational corporations are doing more business in the global economy and expecting more from telecom service providers as well. AT&T has increased its investment in global infrastructure from $750 million last year to $1 billion in 2008.

“The major dynamic is all about globalization,” Salvage said today in an interview. “In order for U.S. multinationals to capture the potential in the global space, they have to have consistent services and access to their processes and tools like SAP and Oracle. All of that support has to be there and available in exactly the same format and structure they have experienced in a domestic setting.”

Based on its customer research, AT&T also knows that is “an awful lot of work to be done in this space,” Salvage said, particularly when it comes to streamlining data operations by consolidating data centers and promoting virtualization of server farms for much higher efficiency. “Globalization, virtualization and consolidation are all key factors here,” Salvage said.

Accordingly, AT&T is investing in increasing its data center hosting capacity with an additional 180,000 square feet of global capacity by mid 2009 throughout the 38 data centers AT&T has deployed globally. According to the company, its expansion targets in 2008 include data centers in Singapore, Amsterdam, Boston and Dallas.

(continued on next page)