CWW wins £10m government communications deal

Cable and Wireless Worldwide has won a 5.5-year contract to provide communications for the Department for International Development.

In the deal worth £10.3m, Cable and Wireless Worldwide (CWW) will provide IP services such as VoIP and wide area networks through its multinational telecommunications framework to the department, the company said on Wednesday. No further technical details were avalable at the time of writing.

"I am delighted to announce another important customer win in our public sector business and the second contract on our global telecoms framework," CWW's chief executive Jim Marsh said in a statement.

A spokesperson for the Department for International Development (DFID) told ZDNet UK that "the [DFID] computer systems will all be linked up in a fast and effective way". The department is expecting to save about £9m from its telecommunications budget through the deal, he said.

In September, Cable and Wireless Worldwide won an £82m contract to provide communications for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO). DIFD will now use the same global communications network as the FCO, the company said.

DFID operates across 44 global sites and has over 1,200 users. CWW has a global next-generation network that can provide connectivity to 153 countries worldwide, according to the company. Latency on the network is less than 300 milliseconds worldwide, and "generally" less than 100 milliseconds in Europe, according to a spokesperson for CWW.