The SWGfL will initially provide this facility to 165 secondary schools throughout the Consortium with the framework to allow the member Local Education Authorities to connect Libraries and Learning Centres with a managed service running to at least 31st August 2003.
This is the first contract to be signed under the broadband initiative of the Government’s Standard Fund, designed to promote the development of the National Grid for Learning. The solution that RM will supply offers connectivity to all the secondary schools across the South West region at a uniform price. Schools will get 2Mbit/s connectivity, filtered access to the Internet and a variety of wide-area networking services.
By using industry standard components the South West consortium will have a platform upon which RM can offer further systems integration and managed services. This coupled with RM’s educational pedigree will provide teachers and pupils in the South West with the infrastructure and high speed connection needed to take advantage of the educational benefits of the Internet. RM will also provide RM SafetyNet Plus, an In-line web-filtering service and cache that include web filters that are applicable at Consortia, LEA and school level. It will also provide Web hosting and security services as well as delivering services to 20,000 desktops.
Richard Girling, chief executive of RM said, ‘We are delighted to be working in partnership with the South West Consortium to deliver this service. Managed Services are increasingly being used in schools to supply the IT needed to deliver the teaching and learning needs. RM is ideally positioned to offer both the systems integration and the managed services demanded by a project like this. We are also able to offer Internet based content services to this type of scheme through our content portal service developed by our recently acquired 3T Productions’.
