UMG has about 9,000 internal users on its network in addition to thousands of people who work for its business partners. Fifteen IT staffers will be transferred from UMG to Equant, although they will continue to work on UMG's network needs, Belmont said. A vice president and a project manager within UMG's IT unit will be retained to oversee the Equant deal.

Working with Equant means UMG will be able to move quickly to voice over IP, something UMG has wanted to do, Belmont said.

The decision to outsource was conceived over 18 months and included bids on the project from Sprint Corp. and MCI Corp. (which offered individual proposals prior to their merger). But Equant was 'found to have the most credibility in what they expressed they could do,' Belmont said.

In fact, one of the lessons he learned in the process was how important it is to examine how trusted a vendor is. 'You have to look very carefully beyond objective facts and look at issues [of] trust and competency that can't be laid out on a spreadsheet,' he said. 'There are intangibles.'

The other lesson is that big communications deals require plenty of time, something IT executives should plan for, Belmont said.