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

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 (Voice over Internet Protocol) services to the region.

Online tender outlines the strategic plans

An online tender outlines the strategic plans, entitled UniCORN, 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 then as charitable organisations and private sector partners.

It will as well have to provide technical, commercial, migration, training and support services to the region, and will be required to work with Broadband Delivery UK, to extend the availability of broadband services across Surrey and Berkshire.

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

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