PSN to connect up to 52 service providers in Yorkshire and Humberside

Virgin Media Business has today signed a contract to deliver a public services network (PSN) to councils and other public-sector bodies in Yorkshire and Humberside.

Yorkshire and Humberside PSN programme director Geoff Prowling said the network will be accessible to 5.5 million people when completely rolled out, and connect up to 52 public service providers including local authorities, healthcare providers and emergency services.

He added that joining the national PSN framework scheme has allowed councils in the region to reach out to other local authorities.

"When we set up the Yorkshire and Humberside Partnership Management Board we were in dialogue with the Cabinet Office and the Government Procurement Office in terms of what Yorkshire and Humber was trying to do," said Prowling, "and it transpired there was a national project that had [already] been started, and we joined forces with that project.

"In effect, we influenced the outcome of the national frameworks because we were a very large regional proposition that was ready to go to market, so we said ‘why don't we go to market together?'," he added.

Among the services that Virgin Media Business has signed up to deliver are telephony, LAN management, datacentre sharing and virtualisation, and data hosting.

"Virgin put forward a very robust proposition around the PSN," Prowling told Computing. "So no matter how large or small the partnership is, they all get the same level of service, credit and service level agreement. That was key for us."

Prowling is enthusiastic about the PSN service in general, and does not share the criticisms expressed to Computing in recent months.

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