Newham Council is installing a high-speed network based on Siemon's industry-leading category 6A F/UTP (shielded) cabling system at its new head office in Royal Docks, London. Building 1000, off Royal Albert Way, now houses the borough's Mayor and more than 2,000 key Council staff as part of its drive to embrace new ways of working and realise cost efficiencies.

A pilot network was the first element to be established by 2e2, the systems integrator installing the new platform, with Siemon supplying almost 200 kilometres of its category 6A shielded cabling. The latter delivers 10GBASE-T operation and is fully compliant with the category 6A standard ratified last year. Now in its third and final phase of installation, the network will provide 10 Gigabits per second (Gbps) connectivity to 5,600 outlets, and support business-critical applications including video conferencing, media streaming and IP Telephony.

The Council's back-office staff were previously dispersed across 24 buildings around the borough, many of which were old and expensive to maintain, so the commercial development at Royal Docks was chosen to provide the opportunity to consolidate resources and improve efficiencies. As a greenfield site, Building 1000 called for deployment of a leading-edge network to meet the Council's requirement for a modern and flexible working environment. Following a competitive tender last year, Newham Council selected integrated solutions provider, 2e2, for delivery of a high-speed infrastructure that could interface with the Council's borough-wide optical fibre backbone and ensure the level of performance needed to support current and future business-critical applications.

"With the 2012 Olympics fast approaching, it is imperative that we have the latest technology at our disposal to meet the challenges of improving front-line services to the people of Newham while preparing to host an event of this magnitude," says Duncan Mackie at Newham Council. "Although the relocation of staff meant a major investment, we have already identified substantial budget savings and the move to a single site equipped with a state-of-the-art and future-proof network provides even greater scope for savings via the sharing of facilities and central management of resources."

Under a phased implementation, 2e2 is rolling out a core network based on Siemon's shielded category 6A cabling and a Cisco switching and IP Telephony platform. To enable support for applications such as voicemail to email conversion, the Council is migrating to Microsoft Exchange and Office Communications Server (OCS) 2007, while the network also supports video conferencing and multi-casting systems for real-time collaboration and the live broadcast of the Council's ‘Newham Today' internal bulletins (and other programmes) to staff.

"Siemon's category 6A shielded system delivers lightning-speed connectivity and forms the backbone of Building 1000 from an IT perspective. By installing a fast, efficient and reliable cabling infrastructure, we can ensure that the multitude of advanced IP-based applications being provisioned will operate in exactly the same fashion," says Gunn Hultin, Project Manager at 2e2. "From the very beginning, Siemon understood our vision for the Council's network and was the only cabling provider able to meet the complex specification while offering the flexibility to deliver the volumes of cabling we required over the duration of the project."

As well as allowing Newham Council to exploit its dark fibre throughout the borough, the new network will help it to move forward with other projects. For example, there are plans to implement remote working facilities for staff, as well as remote monitoring devices throughout the network for enhanced management. 2e2 is already providing 24/7 monitoring, maintenance and support, while a dual spur from Newham Council's fibre backbone ensures resilience.

"In the current economic climate, the onus is on organisations to drive efficiencies and reduce overheads by using the best technology available. Shielded systems offer numerous advantages over unshielded cabling once you move to 10Gbps, and Siemon's shielded category 6A solution delivers a resilient high-speed infrastructure that is standards' compliant, flexible and future proof," adds Graeme Stoker, marketing manager EMEA, Siemon.

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Photo: can be found here; http://fs.turtleconsulting.co.uk/PICS/TSC0319%20Newham.jpg

Notes to editors:

About Siemon

Established in 1903, Siemon^TM is an industry leader specialising in the manufacture and innovation of high quality, high-performance network cabling solutions. With global offices and partners throughout the world, Siemon offers the most comprehensive suite of copper (unshielded and shielded twisted-pair) and fibre cabling systems available and is one of only three network cabling infrastructure companies worldwide with true global partnership capabilities. With over 400 active patents specific to structured cabling, Siemon Labs invests heavily in R&D and development of industry standards, underlining the company's long-term commitment to its customers and the industry.

www.siemon.com/uk

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