BT named as Public Sector Network provider

BT Wholesale has signed a Deed of Undertaking with the Cabinet Office to become one of the providers underpinning the Public Sector Network programme, the company said on Tuesday.

BT Wholesale has signed a Deed of Undertaking with the Cabinet Office to become one of the providers underpinning the Public Sector Network programme. Photo credit: ell brown/Flickr

Following the agreement, BT becomes a provider of Government Conveyance Network (GCN) services, which will interconnect Public Service Network (PSN) Direct Network Service Providers (DNSPs), which in turn supply the government departments. The PSN is a 'network of networks', created from existing commercial networks, for the public sector.

"Today's signature of the DoU [Deed of Undertaking] underlines BT's commitment to the PSN, providing a full range of services including the GCN. Drawing on our experience of co-designing PSN, we can help public-sector organisations achieve both cost and service improvements as well as help them transition to PSN compliance," Neil Rogers, president of BT global services for government and health, said in a statement.

The GCN is intended to act as a secure common backbone to PSN service providers and will enable cloud-based and shared services between organisations. It will also deliver datacentre rationalisation benefits such as reduced cost and complexity, BT said.

A spring 2011 survey by Cisco found that public-sector organisations could save an average of 6.4 percent as a result of PSN services.

The GCN service will be built on BT's core Multi-Protocol Label Switching (MPLS) network, which already has the Communications Electronics Security Group (CESG) 2.2.4 standard accreditation for security and performance.

BT said it expects there to be up to 20 DNSPs that will pay GCN providers to access to the interconnection service. BT's signing of the DoU represents a commitment to bring its GCN service to market within 12 months, the company said.

BT's DoU joins one signed by Virgin Media in November 2010; Virgin is already a major supplier to existing public-sector networks. Global Crossing and Cable & Wireless have also already signed up to provide GCN services.