UK ISP Commsworld Secures Full Fibre Contract for 42 Dundee Schools

Edinburgh-based business broadband ISP Commsworld has announced that they’ve secured a 10-year contract – worth £2.6m – from Dundee City Council (DCC) to help plan, design, migrate and manage a “completely new fibre network service” for 42 schools in and around the city.

The proposed new “high-speed fibre internet service” is said to be “replacing the council’s ageing infrastructure” currently in place in primary and secondary schools in the city which, due to the rapidly increasing use of digital devices and internet for online learning, is under increasing strain.

As part of this, Commsworld will invest in 40km of new fibre infrastructure across the city, with schools gaining access to initial broadband / Ethernet speeds at a minimum of 1Gbps (Gigabits per second) and scalable to 10Gbs per school. As well as enhancing the existing level of network security, this will also enable the sites to make greater use of cloud-based services and enhanced online learning facilities.

The new fibre infrastructure will be linked to Commsworld’s “next generation” Optical Core Network (OCN), which they say has been built specifically to “boost security and resilience of digital infrastructure to organisations not only in Scotland but also the length and breadth of the UK“.

Craig Scott, Public Sector Business Development Director at Commsworld, said:

“Commsworld is delighted that Dundee City Council has chosen us to deliver new, resilient and highly-secure fibre infrastructure to 42 schools in the city.

We have a significant track record of success in this field across the UK. Commsworld has similarly delivered enhanced and easily upgradable connectivity to schools in Glasgow, that has totally transformed digital learning – one of many significant improvements made by our company to the city’s digital infrastructure – as well as schools in North Lanarkshire and Renfrewshire.

Likewise in England, we have recently completed massive improvements to connectivity to 110 schools in Northumberland, delivering a step change in particular for primary and secondary schools in rural locations, which previously had very limited capacity. We look forward to delivering similar positive outcomes and transformation for the schools across Dundee.”

Councillor John Alexander, Leader of DCC, said:

“These services will allow digital learning to be upgraded even further in schools and enable greater use of cloud-based services. The tender is structured in such a way that spare capacity will be built-in to ensure future growth can be easily accommodated.”

The announcement doesn’t say how long the new network and service will take to deploy.