Last year Luton Borough Council completed a deal with ntl:Telewest, which has been running a wide area network (Wan) infrastructure to the council since 1999, to upgrade the narrowband links connecting 85 secondary schools in the Luton area to the Luton Learning Grid and the internet, and provide remote workers with links into the corporate local authority network.

Tim Jeffs, network and communications manager for Luton Borough Council, says the network is providing high-speed access to sites that did not have it previously while simultaneously saving the council money by providing synergies across multiple agencies.

‘Some sites wanted to run specific business applications, while video conferencing for teachers, and could not do that with what they already had in place,’ he says.

Most sites have been upgraded to 2Mbit/s broadband links – 10Mbit/s in high schools, in line with the government target of 8Mbit/s by 2006 – largely on the ntl:Telewest cable network that spans much of the town, but defaulting to BT ADSL where cable does not reach.

‘The main benefit, particularly at the low end, is that we have a much happier customer base because broadband gives us much more effective connections into the council’s networks, as well as excellent options for small sites and teleworkers,’ says Jeffs.

Though much of the cable network is monitored and managed by ntl:Telewest on behalf of the council, Jeffs says that dealing with a single provider, service level agreement (SLA) and helpdesk gives the council much more control over its Wan links.

‘The new network also allowed us to rationalise everything together under a single contact that we can effectively manage from central office.

‘There is also more resilience in the network now as servers are located at two sites in the town centre, and we can control the routing and switching functions,’ he says.

Further ‘bandwidth on tap’ at speeds of up to 100Mbit/s is available over the ntl:Telewest network as and when the council requires, at relatively low implementation costs.

‘We are also in the early stages of putting a wireless overlay onto the existing network,’ he says.