Racal picks up £16m secure messaging contract from RAF

Racal Telecom has won a £16m contract to provide the UK Royal Air Force (RAF) with a secure data messaging service.

The messaging and directory services will link over 55,000 staff at some 70 different sites across the world including Germany, Gibraltar, Cyprus and the Falkland Islands. Based on Racal's X. 400 messaging system, the service will run over the RAF's current LAN (Local Area Network) and WAN (Wide Area Network) backbone.

Brian Bisser, director and general manager of corporate managed services at Racal, said the aim was to provide the RAF with a secure pathway for sending text and attached documents. "It's much more secure than the Internet," he said. The system automatically checks each message for viruses and converts document types when necessary.

Martin Wyse, senior defence account manager at Racal, stressed that the most important requirement was to make the system flexible. "It's designed in a module format so it can easily expand and contract," he said.

With this in mind Racal designed the service with 'off-the-shelf' Isocor software to make it easy to include new links in the network. "It's as flexible and forward-looking as possible," Wyse added.

Racal hopes the service will be extended into other government departments and the RAF's external suppliers. The RAF and Racal have signed a revenue sharing deal which means both sides would benefit financially from any third party expansion.

The deal was struck under the government's Public Private Partnership (PPP) programme. Wyse added that unusually, the RAF will pay a fixed sum for the service, rather than being charged per user. "It makes invoicing and billing simple, and the RAF can estimate costs and savings as well," he said.

In the last few years Racal has picked up a number of high-profile government contracts through the PPP scheme, including voice and data services for Customs & Excise, the Prison Service and the Land Registry.