AT&T announced that it has won a three-year, $1.5 million networking contract from Thomas & King Inc., a franchisee of more than 85 Applebee's Neighborhood Grill & Bar and Johnny Carino's restaurants in Kentucky, Ohio and Arizona.

Under the terms of the agreement, AT&T will provide an Internet Protocol Virtual Private Network (IP VPN) connecting Thomas & King's headquartersand 85-plus restaurants with increased bandwidth and faster speeds. The solution uses Multi-Protocol Label Switching (MPLS) technology, enabling Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) and class of service with priority queuing for business applications.



In addition to VoIP, the network will also handle Intranet, e-mail, credit card processing and training videos applications.

"We are growing at the rate of six to eight new restaurants per year and decided it was time to revamp our network," said Mike Scanlon, president and CEO of Thomas & King Inc. "AT&T has been a trusted supplier for many years, and so we turned to them to help us manage our growth and increase productivity through practical technology solutions."

Thomas & King will also have around-the-clock online access to real-time reports on network performance and direct connection to electronic billing and trouble management systems through the secure AT&T BusinessDirect portal.