Five hundred and fifty staff at offices in Plymouth, Bournemouth and Sutton are now linked by a new inter-site network providing site-to-site speeds of up to 1Gbit/s. The new network means that FirstAssist contact centre staff can better access critical information without delay and serve customers more quickly over the phone and via the web.

FirstAssist designs bespoke insurance solutions for many of the UK's leading blue-chip companies, including banks and other major financial services providers. Priding itself on its award winning levels of delivery and customer service, the new infrastructure provides them with the capability to manage a greater volume of business.

With increased capacity, the high speed network also paves the way for FirstAssist to make significant savings by moving its disaster recovery operation in-house from its current outsourced arrangement.

"Our clients' reputations depend on the trust their customers have in their brands, and we operate as if we are part of them. As such, we're expected to deliver an extraordinarily high level of service to our various customers and having the confidence in our network to access information quickly means that we are better equipped to deliver the service excellence that we promise," said Nick Jenner, Head of IT at FirstAssist Insurance Services. "The investment we've made has empowered us to not only transform the way we do business today by taking on more responsibility in-house, but also provided us with the foundations to deploy more creative IT solutions in the future."

FirstAssist invested in high capacity Ethernet point-to-point 100Mbit/s and 1Gbit/s circuits. Virgin Media Business was the only supplier capable of providing a 1Gbit/s circuit over the distance required.

"Establishing high capacity Ethernet over larger distances has up until recently been fairly challenging. However, we've worked hard at developing the technology and it's a perfect choice for companies wishing to share large amounts of data between multiple sites nationwide," said Andrew Beckhaus, head of business markets for Virgin Media Business in London. "In the insurance industry, data transferred slowly or incorrectly can make the difference between a happy or unhappy customer, so this type of infrastructure further increases FirstAssist's ability to proactively serve its many customers whilst at the same time investing in its growth."