East of England cuts costs and improves service for public sector

26 May 2010

An innovative shared-service infrastructure in the East of England brings significant cost savings and improved connectivity to local government and tertiary education.

JANET and E2BN have jointly procured a new regional infrastructure in the East of England for HE, FE, schools and Local Authorities. This joint procurement has resulted in major cost savings to the public sector while delivering increased bandwidth to the customer base.

By procuring the network together, both JANET(UK) and E2BN are able to share the costs of delivering a regional infrastructure for the East of England. In addition, the combined skills and expertise of both companies will ensure the network is designed to address the specific requirements of data traffic in the region, whilst enabling connectivity to wider geographic locations.

The network demonstrates a move towards more effective and efficient working across the sector and mirrors the key principals of the government ICT strategy: to improve efficiency, access to, and delivery of, public services. Through a common infrastructure, standards and capabilities, the joint network will make it easier to join up public services, facilitating interworking and interoperability whilst reducing the replication of infrastructure and duplication of effort.

As demand for broadband usage continues to increase significantly in the East of England, this cost effective solution, which will provide a tenfold increase in capacity from 1Gbit/s to 10Gbit/s, is not only essential for the efficient and effective functioning of educational institutions and public services on a day-to-day basis, but also enhances the capabilities for data sharing and business delivery within the region. Furthermore, as demand for bandwidth grows within the region, upgrades to connections can be achieved in a seamless manner due to the scalable nature of the network. Users will benefit from a reliable and resilient network and improved opportunities for shared services. The network also has the potential for wider use by local government services in the future.

Bob Day, chief technology officer at JANET(UK), commented 'This initiative is just one example of an increasing engagement between JANET and the commissioners of other public-sector networks across the UK. JANET(UK) very much supports the government's Public Sector Network initiative and its emphasis on driving down costs by more efficient engagement with the market. We see this approach as essential in continuing to provide the best possible services to UK education and research in an increasingly challenging public funding environment. Regional shared-service initiatives such as that in the East of England, and elsewhere, are to us key enablers of this wider PSN vision.'

Chris Kastel, ceo of E2BN, said ‘By combining the obvious synergy between both the needs of Local Authorities and their schools and the requirements of the HE, FE and public services, this new East of England public sector infrastructure will enable these organisations to maximize the use of aggregation and collaboration without having to worry about incremental upgrades to connectivity and the associated costs'.

Following procurement, the contract to provide the network was awarded to Easynet and the new combined network is due to commence operation in mid 2010.

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