Lloyds TSB, the UK retail bank, has picked IBM to provide network and VoIP services for the next seven years. The £500m contract covers a converged network carrying voice, video and data as well as 70,000 Voice over Internet Protocol phones from Cisco.

The nationwide network will be rolled out over the next 20 months. The network will provide better performance with fibre links between branches providing lots of bandwidth - it will also be better value providing an: "eight-fold increase in throughput for approximately a quarter of the previous overall cost." The converged network will be able to tell different applications apart and so ensure that each gets enough bandwidth

The bank hopes that improved bandwidth will allow it to use application previously regarded as too demanding for its network.

Vanco will provide the network management and integration expertise. Vtesse Networks is building a virtual private network using optical connections from various vendors.

Lloyds TSB has 2,500 branches and about 1,000 other sites across the UK. It currently has a traditional voice network with over 30 different supplier contracts. ®