Surrey County Council seeks to deploy unified comms over new regional networks

Council looks for commercial partner to provide extensive services to the Surrey and Berkshire region in contract worth an estimated £200m

Surrey County Council, which represents numerous public sector bodies in Surrey and Berkshire, is looking for a commercial partner to provide a managed WAN, a number of LANs and VOIP services to the region.

An online tender outlines the strategic plans, entitled UniCORN (Unified Communications over Regional Networks), and it states that the contract could be worth as much as £200m.

The commercial partner will provide managed wide and local area networking and IP voice services to public sector premises, as well as charitable organisations and private sector partners.

It will also have to provide technical, commercial, migration, training and support services to the region, and will be required to work with Broadband Delivery UK (the government body which allocates funding for superfast broadband rollout), to extend the availability of broadband services across Surrey and Berkshire.

Surrey County Council also says it wants to "evaluate and trial new networking technology" throughout the life of the contract so as to maintain services in line with changing business needs, but also to identify technical opportunities.

Surrey Police, councils in the region, Royal Berkshire Fire Authority, health authorities, and schools will benefit from the networks.

The initial term of the agreement will be at least seven years, but will include the possibility of three separate extensions, bringing the length of the contract up to 12 years.

Interested parties have until 7 September to register their requests to participate.