Energis to build £40m secure government broadband network

Energis has won a major £40m contract to link Whitehall departments, local authorities and government agencies with a new encrypted broadband network for secure email and communications.

The new next-generation Government Secure Intranet (GSI) is replaces the existing Cable & Wireless network and is expected to eventually be used by 300,000 people. It will be based on IP virtual private network (VPN) technology.

The upgraded network will provide secure direct access between government departments and will use a public key infrastructure (PKI), with a central directory service of contacts and users' digital certificates.

Energis beat off competition from 24 other companies, including BT and C&W, after the contract was put out to tender by the commercial procurement arm of the Office of Government Commerce last year.

Testing is expected to begin early next year, with the full migration of users from the C&W network targeted for the end of 2004.

The increased bandwidth provided by the broadband network will support voice and video as well as data and provide better support for 'real-time' applications. The government hopes to save costs through reduced tariffs from Energis and the ability to run multiple services – such as GSI access, remote homeworker access, internet access and voice services – via a single access circuit.

Alan Collier, director of telecoms contracts for OGC buying.solutions, said: "The new network will offer significant savings and is a major technical advance. Energis' offering supports government in moving towards voice and data convergence and provides access to the GSI via broadband for the first time."

Energis already manages around 2,200 government sites on its network, including the Crown Prosecution Service, Employment Service, Inland Revenue and Vehicle Inspectorate. Angel Dobardziev, analyst at Ovum, said Energis' focus on the UK market and on providing the lowest price is behind its recent string of contract wins.

"My observation it has been winning these deals purely on financial grounds, but BT is clearly not prepared to go for every contract at any price. With the financial cloud and restructuring over C&W it is very difficult to win major contracts. One of the deciding factors when customers choose suppliers is financial stability," he said.