London Borough of Havering opts for FibreSpans

London, United Kingdom, 7 July 2006

London’s third largest borough, the London Borough of Havering, has implemented a FibreSpan dark fibre link to connect two of its largest administrative sites.

The Council had a requirement to replace a legacy network link between two of its sites to support high bandwidth data services for over 1,000 users and to fulfil plans to migrate to Voice over IP (VoIP) in the future.  Furthermore, the buildings were in Romford town centre and the Council had concerns with regards to the possible disruption of a new installation to both pedestrians and road traffic.

The Council reviewed the market and felt that FibreSpan had a compelling business case when compared to other communication providers.  Not only does it lease a bespoke and dedicated network with low installation costs and a fixed annual cost, but its patent-pending microduct technology causes minimal disruption during installation.

FibreSpan managed the whole planning and deployment process, which included liaison with the Council’s highway department as well as the contractors of a major development site in the surrounding area.  The deployment took place quickly and without any disruption in the town centre.

The two sites have to exchange data at all times and having a high-speed and dependable link is essential for the Council - not only for data, but also for voice in the future – a service that it can implement without any additional network costs.  The Council has complete control over the network and can run any number and type of services with minimal on-going costs.  

The Council plans to extend the network in late 2005 by connecting an additional building, which will run both data and VoIP services to a further 600+ employees.