The primary goal for Dorset County Council (DCC) was to provide symmetrical 10 Mbps broadband services to the county’s 37 secondary schools, and 2 Mbps access to its 163 primaries, in line with DfES guidance and deadlines. Public services will be further enhanced through broadband connections to 150 libraries, one-stop-shops and other council offices throughout the county.
Challenges
DCC was determined to locate a provider that could provide outstanding value for money across the whole of the county’s primarily rural topography. The solution would also need to have the capacity and flexibility to allow the DCC to continue to modernise its services in the future, and expand the network to incorporate home broadband provision (for Council workers) and other potential stakeholders including local business communities.
Solution
Updata provided an advanced, managed DSL broadband service to over 330 sites, from 30 rural and urban telephone exchanges. Aside from basic connectivity, the QoS/CoS attributes of the managed services are - in the longer term - enabling delivery of applications such as secure VPN and IP Telephony. The supporting infrastructure build-out includes MPLS-enabled IP DSL gear in exchanges and a licensed wireless backbone network interconnecting exchanges at speeds of up to 155 Mbps.