UK ISP MLL Telecom Win Wireless Broadband Contract for Gateshead Council

Business ISP MLL Telecom has won a contract worth £800,000 to extend the on-going supply, installation and support of ultra-fast wireless broadband services around the Gateshead Metropolitan Borough Council (GMBC) area for up to a further four years.

The ISP’s fully managed service contract will also take responsibility for updating the core network infrastructure, which has a broadband connectivity need for service speeds of up to 1Gbps (Gigabits per second), and providing “innovative new technology solutions” to areas such as the council’s local school estate.

Roy Sheehan, ICT Service Director at GMBC, said:

“Radio technology is an important aspect of our network service delivery and is used by the council to deliver high speed links cost-effectively to areas where fibre is not readily available or would otherwise be too expensive. We have also worked with MLL Telecom to consider 300Mb wireless services to sites that have outgrown their current 100Mb fixed line service but that can’t reasonably justify the increased cost of a 1Gb fixed circuit rental.

The radio solution provides us with a very cost-effective option when addressing the challenge of delivering increased bandwidth within a reduced budget. We are extremely happy with the service [MLL Telecom] continue to provide.”

MLL’s Regional Director of Public Service, Darrin Chadwick, said that his ISP was able to utilise “our own spectrum” to provide “high speed interference-free networks to council offices, libraries, schools and other public buildings in shorter timescales and more cost-effectively than standard spectrum licencing procedures through Ofcom“.

This will be done through radio based wide-area-network connectivity with point-to-point and point-to-multi-point technology. The new contract will apparently extend the existing relationship between MLL and GMBC up to 10 years in total.