Kent County Council has signed a £32 million deal for a wide area network (WAN) to connect more than 1,000 sites.
Under the contract, IT services company Unisys will create and manage a public information network and security service for the local government authority until late 2012.
The Kent Public Service Network (KPSN) will connect around 1,100 public sector sites, including schools, council offices and libraries, to provide them with greater bandwidth.
Kent Council has claimed the extra bandwidth will double the internet access of many primary schools, and improve home and mobile working. It also will provide increased Internet capacity to county residents.
Unisys will design and build KPSN on a high speed Cisco backbone, and provide all of the associated hardware and software.
Paul Carter, leader of Kent County Council said: "We expect that the benefits the network will bring in terms of collaboration, governmental linkage and common shared infrastructure will in turn result in enhanced public services for the people of Kent."
Reprinted with permission from Computerworld UK. Story copyright 2008 Computerworld UK Inc. All rights reserved.
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