Press Releases

• Over 1800 km of next generation fibre link the SIBS network;
• Communications are monitored 24 hours a day, seven days a week at the Atlantic Network Operations Centre.

Almost a year after the start of the partnership between Vodafone and SIBS, the two companies are extremely satisfied with a technologically highly sophisticated project linking over 7000 ATMs across Portugal.

To mark the success of the supply of communications services to SIBS, Vodafone has launched a nationwide multimedia campaign with the slogans: “To talk about SIBS is to talk about next generation networks” and “To talk about SIBS is to talk about Vodafone.”

The project, tailored to SIBS’s requirements, is based on a global, integrated, convergent solution employing different access technologies and a next generation network architecture.

“The partnership with SIBS is an example of the level of trust that the market has come to place in Vodafone. The solution, developed to ensure the quality and reliability of the services of one of the major national communications networks is indicative of our ability to put forward added value proposals to corporate customers,” said Mario Vaz, CEO of Vodafone.

The two companies brought about a silent revolution in which the technical and operational management of communications was changed without causing the slightest incident or inconvenience to the millions of Portuguese who use ATMs every day.

The project, which involved the total renovation of all the communications equipment installed outside bank branches, relies on over 1800 km of the best fibre network in Europe, which currently serves more than 2.5 million homes and businesses. The supply of communications to SIBS also includes redundancy solutions employing both fixed and mobile technologies which guarantee high bandwidths and high levels of availability, resilience and access.

For over five months, Vodafone allocated a team of some 80 employees with highly specialised expertise to the design, configuration and maintenance of the entire operation. In total, over 50,000 hours were allocated to this highly important project.

The MULTIBANCO network processes approximately 80 million transactions a month, equivalent to three million per day or 18,500 per minute. This network, one of the most complex and sophisticated in the world, is monitored 24 hours a day, seven days a week, all year round at the Atlantic Network Operations Centre (ANOC), the Vodafone Group’s network operations centre in Europe.

 “The partnership between Vodafone Portugal and SIBS is even more relevant in the current economic climate as we are talking about two leading companies that have wrought major changes in the sectors in which they operate. Paying the telephone bill at an ATM is a common operation in the daily lives of millions of Portuguese. But that is only possible because MULTIBANCO changed the lives of the Portuguese exactly 31 years ago. This development is inseparable from Vodafone’s nearly 25-year history of major presence in the Portuguese corporate world”, Mario Vaz added.

Vodafone continues to focus strongly on the corporate segment, developing innovative products and services that enable it to consolidate its partnership with current customers and win new ones. To help innovative companies, exporters or entrepreneurs to face new market challenges, what Vodafone offers goes far beyond traditional mobile phone services.

With a business aggregation network based on a next generation fibre network and the best mobile network in Portugal – according to the results of survey by P3 Communications – Vodafone offers speeds up to 4 times higher than its competitors. The latest customers it has gained – the Ministries of Agriculture and Justice, Metropolitano/Carris and Teixeira Duarte – demonstrate that Vodafone is extending its conquests in the corporate segment.

 “To talk about SIBS is to talk about next generation networks”

Vodafone yesterday launched a nationwide multimedia campaign covering television, radio, print and online media. “To talk about SIBS is to talk about next generation networks” and “To talk about SIBS is to talk about Vodafone” are the slogans for the campaign, which is being run by JWT, with production by Krypton and media planning by MEC.

The campaign aims to show that there are ever more companies working with Vodafone, such as SIBS which has linked thousands of MULTIBANCO ATMs via next generation fixed and mobile networks. And if Vodafone is able to do this for one of the world’s most advanced payment systems, imagine what it can do for Portuguese companies. This is the challenge it lays down to Portuguese businesses.