Virgin Provides Fibre For UK Government Network

Virgin Media Business has offered up its fibre-optic network to underpin the UK government’s Public Sector Network (PSN), designed to deliver voice and data technology and related ICT services over a single core network.

The PSN was pioneered by the previous Labour government, which in its ICT Strategy proposed setting up a network that was “secure, based on open standards, interoperable, energy efficient and competitive”. This would replace the current hotchpotch of public sector networks, which were described as “fragmented, unreliable and expensive”.

According to Virgin, the PSN will deliver substantial cost savings at a time when the typical government department is looking at reducing its budget by 19 percent over the next four years. Virgin Media Business has now become the second company – after IP services company Global Crossing – to sign a ‘Deed of Undertaking’ with the government.

Shared services

“Virgin Media Business has been a driving force behind the future of public sector ICT for over 16 years and provides services for over 30,000 public sector sites and over 60 percent of healthcare and emergency services,” said Robert Parker, head of Public Sector Network development for Virgin Media Business. “We’ve been able to take this knowledge and apply it to the most important and dynamic shared services initiative ever undertaken in the UK.”

Virgin will now launch its Government Conveyance Network (GCN) capability, building on other recent investments in information assurance and security. This, it claims, will be a key enabler for the emerging PSN marketplace.

The news follows an announcement earlier this month that Virgin Media Business has been awarded a place on the national framework for JANET – the UK’s education and research network. The company is now approved to sell telecommunications services to all education institutions and local education authorities across the country.

Other companies signed up to the JANET framework include Cable & Wireless, BT, and Geo Networks.