Surrey County Council awards £18m telecoms contract

Surrey County Council has awarded an £18m contract to Cable & Wireless to supply managed telecoms services until 2013.

The agreement will commence in March 2008 and is an extension to an existing contract with the supplier signed in October 2001. It is the second time the contract has been extended.

The scope of the work includes managing the Surrey wide area network (Swan) and associated local area networks connecting over 24,000 people across 1,000 sites.

The contract will also manage the local council’s IP telephony system, mobile services including approximately 4,500 mobile handsets, 600 Blackberry devices and 3G data cards.

Cable & Wireless will manage the relationships with mobile suppliers and provide a private connection back into the Swan network reducing the cost of calls back to the office.

‘Cable & Wireless acts as our internal telecoms team - with a single supplier managing all our requirements, we can focus on delivering services to our citizens,’ said Richard Shaw, chief executive at Surrey County Council.

Surrey County Council has a shared services approach to common services and has introduced online services for local citizens, while employees can work flexibly across different sites or access the Council network from home.

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Further reading:

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