When South East Water (SEW) wanted information to flow smoothly through its networks, a new digital network seemed an obvious choice, says Jamie King, IT services project manager at the utility company.

But relying on a single network, carrying all the firm’s voice and data traffic, presented a huge potential risk.

“From an IT perspective, having resilience for works such as planned and unplanned maintenance and adequate redundancy built in was a top priority,” says King.

The systems have automatic failover and if a site goes offline, a redundant circuit will kick in so that from a user’s perspective, it is business as usual.

When the new system was being bedded in, SEW met monthly with ntl:Telewest Business to discuss issues such as planned works, action in case of failures and change control.

“We have scaled down monthly service meetings to quarterly ones, as the network has proved resilient and we use the time to discuss other business opportunities,” says King.

One of the most challenging issues to nail down at those meetings was to ensure that the resilience of the IP network was capable of meeting the requirements of voice.

“When we put the new network into headquarters, we paid particular attention to voice. From a call centre perspective, losing voice is like losing a limb,” says King.

Tests were carried out, which involved streaming real-time data, including voice and video data, over the network and pulling out cables, says King.

“We powered down the network and watched as it automatically healed itself. With the old system, if someone cut through a primary link during road works, the system would go offline. Now if that happened a secondary link would kick in without a hiccup,” says King.