Cable&Wireless Europe, Asia & US (EAU) has announced that it has signed a new six-year contract with insurance firm Aviva worth £300m.

The contract will see Cable&Wireless providing a full communications suite – 72 separate services, including voice telephony, data, local and wide area networks (IP-VPN and MPLS) and international services – to Aviva’s 35,000 strong staff based in the UK and India.

The contract successfully expands Cable&Wireless' long-standing relationship with Aviva, where it has been Aviva’s preferred telecom supplier for 12 years, to include a range of innovative new services.

Cable&Wireless will continue to manage Aviva's existing communications infrastructure as well as introduce services such as IP telephony and IP contact centre services, managed Blackberry services and advanced speech recognition technology across Aviva sites in the UK. In total, the network will comprise more than 1000 sites, with 57,000 individual telephone points and 74,000 data points.

Aviva will also further utilise Cable&Wireless' well-established infrastructure and experience in India under the contract. Cable&Wireless will continue to manage 6,000 call centre seats in India, including providing on-site support staff.

The new services will help Aviva to improve communication with its customers, who are increasingly interacting with the company through e-mail and e-commerce tools. The IP-based services will also enable Aviva to achieve significant cost savings without reducing its communication facilities.