MGE UPS SYSTEMS CUSTOMERS INTERVIEW
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Backstage at Cegetel France
With Denis Hermann, support engineer in the deployment Division

Denis Hermann
"We chose MGE for its expertise. MGE already had an excellent reputation: it cannot be faulted on its technical quality, and is one manufacturer who no longer has to prove its worth. Every day, the equipment provides proof of its efficiency."

Focus on CEGETEL
Cegetel was created in 1996 by the Vivendi group, its main shareholder (44 % of Cegetel’s capital).

Cegetel now has 11 million customers, i.e. 10 times more than three years ago and employs 8000 people. Our turnover has increased from 2.9 thousand million Euros in 1998 to 4.1 thousand million in 1999.
   
Cegetel is present in all “general public” telecom activities: mobile telephony with SFR, wired telephony with the “7” service, Internet with AOL Compuserve France, and all company telecommunications (wired and mobile vocal, data and Internet).
 
Interview
In your activity, where the choice of suppliers is essential, what are your choice criteria?
The implications in telecommunication are huge, which is why the main choice criteria are technical quality, followed by price and deadlines, and then maintenance and after-sales services.
Cegetel seeks, above all, good value for money, associated with satisfactory maintenance.

As a telecommunication operator, why did you choose MGE UPS SYSTEMS to ensure the security of your sites and telecom applications?
We chose MGE for its expertise. MGE already had an excellent reputation: it cannot be faulted on its technical quality, and is one manufacturer who no longer has to prove its worth. Every day, the equipment provides proof of its efficiency.

What are the implications for Cegetel when choosing electrical protection?
Throughout France, Cegetel, as an overall telecommunications operator, offers a full range of innovative services requiring a high capacity of information processing and transmission.

To satisfy the new needs of companies and private individuals, Cegetel relies on a number of networks: a high flow national network set up in partnership with the SNCF, local optical fibre networks, a network devoted to data transfer, mobile communication networks and the international Concert network.
All these networks require maximum protection.

We also have to protect our computer and office applications.The implications in electrical protection terms are huge. An MSC site can process up to 300 000 calls. We cannot permit mistakes. In the event of a power cut,
the operating losses would be considerable.

What technical UPS solutions have you chosen to protect your sites?
Are you satisfied and what improvements would you like to see?
We had to choose a “made-to-measure” solution.
We have tried to compromise on an electrical level between price and the means used to ensure optimum security. We have adopted the back-up principle (2 UPS systems of the same power connected in parallel).

This configuration greatly increases energy availability for sensitive applications and provides extra security. In the event of failure, we have a safety net provided by the second UPS. We have chosen the Galaxy PW UPS.

MGE has so far equipped more than 50 sites. We are very satisfied with the technical solution, but would like MGE to be able to give us shorter delivery lead times for UPS purchases.
We are moving towards more information and a higher level of technical nature.

In your opinion, what is the future of telephony?
Telephony will increasingly associate voice and image in mobiles and we are moving towards GPRS, which is much faster than GSM for data transfer, and then towards UMTS, the 3rd generation of mobile telephony.