Case Studies

Infrastructure

nextiraOne is the technology partner in a highly successful public-private partnership helping the people of Middlesbrough to enjoy more efficient, more dependable, more responsive and less expensive services.­­

The Council­

­With a population of 145,000, Middlesbrough is one of the principal towns in the Teesside area of north-east England. In 2000, middlesbrough Council decided to create ‘Service Middlesbrough’, a framework for the outsourcing of a whole range of its services to a private sector company within a 10-year public-private ­partnership (PPP) agreement.­

From a shortlist of four international companies, Middlesbrough Council selected HBS (and its technology partner, nextiraOne UK), signing a £260 million contract in June 2001. HBS was successfully engaged with other local authorities in PPPs, and – as a member of the Nomura group – had the financial muscle to deliver on its promises.­­

The Challenge­

• to design, implement, manage and maintain a flexible data, voice and video infrastructure. This would have to deliver a high availability service to more than 3,000 users in six main buildings and a further 80 more remote sites.
• to create, manage and maintain a contact centre that would provide a single point of telephone contact for anyone who wanted to call the local authority.
• to design, test, build, implement, manage and maintain a voice infrastructure that would deliver modern telephony functionality to the desktop of every council employee.

Tim Lonsdale, HBS’s regional managing director, commented "HBS and NextiraOne have developed a strong partnership to jointly deliver improved ICT services to Middlesbrough Council. The new network infrastructure provided by nextiraOne strongly supports the HBS investment programme which has enabled improved services to be provided to the citizens of Middlesbrough."

The Solution

nextiraOne’s vendor independence means that its designers can select the components that best address the business needs of each particular client. In the case of Service Middlesbrough’s networks, it was decided that an end-to-end IP solution based on Cisco Systems and Alcatel products, supported by a Mayflex Excel Category 6 cabling system, would be most effective.

nextiraOne at first needed to select suppliers to partner them in delivering this challenging infrastructure project. "Selecting partners from the cabling industry is not a simple task," commented Simon Moy (RCDD), Senior Presales Infrastructure Consultant for nextiraOne. "We were looking for a partner that had vast experience in installing both fibre and copper systems, especially an installer who had a good understanding of Category 6 cabling systems and blown fibre technology, Amillan where a natural choice". The second task in hand was to select a system supplier that could provide the product set required, guaranteed deliveries with added value in the form of pre and post sales support. The answer again was quite clear, after evaluating many, Mayflex stood clear of the others.

The task was set for nextiraOne, with the support of Amillan, to develop a cabling system for the central buildings of Middlesbrough Council, including the new Regional Business Centre for HBS. Each building needed to be resiliently linked to the ‘Core’ voice and data networks of the central campus and required extensive work within occupied areas. The key driver for the project was to provide a new cabling infrastructure that was flexible and future proofed to support the new voice and data networks, replacing the existing network cabling which comprised of IBM Type 1, 10Base2 and Category 3,4 and 5 cabling.

When designing the infrastructure backbone, it was key to ensure flexibility and expandability was built in, to allow for the potential growth of the networks.

nextiraOne, after extensive research of the market place, decided on the Brand-Rex Blolite solution to link the central campus buildings. It was apparent that this was the best system that provided the flexibility of being able to add or change the fibre type at a later date without having to undergo all the disruption of installing new cables. This was an important feature when some 20 cables were to be installed with a total length in excess of 4.5Km, incorporating 350 cores of fibre totalling 72,000 metres in length, all being installed in existing underground ducts through the streets of Middlesbrough town centre.

A complex fibre distributed backbone was installed to provide a dual attached principal for the switched network and distributed Alcatel telephone system with all cabling between buildings being diversely routed.

The installation required strict supervision and implementation under health and safety guidelines, especially for the lifting of duct covers in public footpaths. Permits had to be received from the councils Highways Department and the local Police Authority before work could commence.

As with the external fibre system, flexibility and future proofed technology were key to the internal structured cabling system. The new cabling system was to be a LSOH solution, which must be supported by an unequivocal warranty by the manufacturer; the system chosen was the Excel Category 6 offered by Mayflex.

The Mayflex solution not only offered nextiraOne the base components, but was also backed by the complete product portfolio of Mayflex, along with a name for quality and support. This value added service offered by Mayflex swung the decision for the designers of the system. "With Mayflex as our partner (commented Simon Moy) nextiraOne were confident that the logistical and support aspects of the project were in expert hands, this helped us immensely with executing this complicated project to tight deadlines".

The entire installation of the network cabling was carried out within occupied buildings, with the majority of works being completed outside of normal working hours to avoid any disruption to the council’s busy day-to-day activities.

Special consideration also had to be taken into account for other sensitive buildings such as the Central Library and Registrars office. nextiraOne are in the final design stages for the last, and probably most sensitive building of all, Middlesbrough Town Hall. This building, one of few Grade II listed buildings in the area will provide nextiraOne with another challenging installation.

In addition to the central buildings of Middlesbrough Council, further installations of Excel Category 6 and Category 5e cabling have been rolled out within the ‘remote sites’ of the council. At present a further 30 plus sites have been installed, some of these include Libraries, Social Services Offices, Child Care Offices and Leisure Centres all undergoing similar network upgrades as the central buildings. The cabling infrastructure project is in its 2nd year and at its peak has had approximately 40 installation engineers on site.

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