Harrogate Borough Council
“Kcom produced a quality solution that exceeded our specification at the lowest price.”
Kcom has modernised Harrogate Borough Council’s network by implementing a resilient Nortel infrastructure which is IP telephony ready. The solution will help the Council meet e-government targets and improve public service. Committed to delivering quality wherever it can, Harrogate Borough Council provides over 100 services to some 140,000 people, including refuse collection, public health and bereavement services.
The council chose Kcom to provide an IP network infrastructure that would support increased volumes of traffic as well as next generation multimedia applications and systems - such as voice and video over IP - that will be deployed as part of the e-Government agenda.
The Challenge
Harrogate Borough Council’s old fibre network was becoming obsolete. Its performance was inadequate and the equipment was becoming less reliable with age.
The challenge facing Kcom was to replace the network with a modern resilient IP network that would reduce congestion during peak periods. It also needed to support the ever increasing demands of new applications and more powerful computers. The Council also wanted to ensure its network could support IP telephony.
“We awarded the contract to Kcom after a lengthy selection process because we wanted a company with a proven track record of installing similar networks,” said Kevin McHugh, data communications manager.
“We were looking for technical competence and project management skills as well as the quality systems that Kcom had in place, such as ISO9000. Kcom produced a quality solution that met or exceeded our specification at the lowest price,” said McHugh.
The Solution
To provide Harrogate Borough Council with the added resilience and greater information carrying capacity it needed, Kcom installed a metropolitan area network based on Nortel Networks’ Gigabit Ethernet technology. Supporting both front and back office staff, the new network links 14 council sites, including museums, the cemetery, leisure centres and Harrogate International Centre, where conferences, exhibitions and trade fairs are held.
As well as Nortel Networks’ fully redundant Passport 8600 routing switches, Kcom also used BayStack 380 and 470 switches to upgrade the network. So that the network could be managed centrally, Kcom supplied Nortel Networks’ Optivity Policy Manager. The council opted for Nortel Networks technology primarily because of its quality of service (QoS), support, price and the level of resilience provided through its new split multilink trunking (SMLT) architecture.
The Benefits
Today, Harrogate Borough Council has a fully converged IP network that has brought a tenfold increase in information carrying capacity. Aside from providing the Council with increased resilience and quality of service, the new network also provides a more robust infrastructure that supports the Council’s ‘access to services’ initiative.
“We awarded the contract to Kcom after a lengthy selection process because we wanted a company with a proven track record of installing similar networks.”
Kevin McHugh, Data Communications Manager, Harrogate Borough Council
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