Sellafield Ltd, operator of the UK’s largest nuclear site, has turned to BT to power its entire network services.
According to BT, the deal will run for five years and is valued at £32 million. Along with running and maintaining Sellafield’s network services, it will also carry out upgrades and updates to current equipment.
The contract will include wide and local area network services, core and gateway services, as well as audio and conferencing, telephony and cybersecurity. Upgrades to the network will also enable Sellafield to try out new technologies such as Internet of Things (IoT) and 5G in the future.
Ashish Gupta, MD Corporate and Public Sector for BT’s Enterprise unit, says the company will “also provide a significant boost to the local community too” as “over the life of the partnership, we will be investing £2 million into West Cumbria to help tackle the causes of inequality among the area’s most vulnerable people”.
The contract is one of a number that Sellafield is letting as part of its multi-supplier model for ICT delivery. The model is designed to improve the “flexibility and agility” of the company’s IT services, and will see new tools, technologies and capabilities brought to Sellafield.
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Sellafield employs around 11,000 people who work at the West Cumbrian nuclear site and a number of off-site offices in Cumbria and Warrington.
The BT network will incorporate Wi-Fi, a unified communications programme to consolidate conferencing solutions such as Teams and Skype, and in-built security to enable the handling and processing of sensitive data.
Sellafield is often in the news, and not for tech reasons. As Sky News reported in June, it took an “inside look at the most hazardous building in Western Europe as work to remove radioactive sludge begins”.
Away from hazards and sludge, BT has been busy in the safer worlds of tech and telecoms.
Last month, BT’s Digital team said it will recruit 2,800 more staff in the UK and India.
The new UK colleagues BT plans to onboard (1,000 approximately) will be around its hub sites in Birmingham, Manchester, Bristol, Belfast, Ipswich and London, with the majority of new UK digital talent based outside London.
Image courtesy of BT.
