Cambridgeshire County Council has awarded a £29m, eight-year
contract to NTL Business to develop a county-wide broadband network
linking council offices, schools, libraries and public access
points such as community centres.
Council officials said that by April 2004 the Cambridgeshire
Community Network will link more than 300 locations.
John Little, head of IT at Cambridgeshire County Council, said,
"Broadband is fundamental to what we are trying to do over the next
few years - it underpins our e-government services and increases
our accessibility to the public."
Local people will be able to access the network from one of more
than 200 computers situated around the county using high-speed
broadband cable connections. Little said services available to
residents over the network will include electronic transactions in
libraries and videoconferencing with council departments.
Officials also expect the network to boost Cambridgeshire's
modernisation of public services, enabling the introduction of an
Internet community portal and smartcards for access to services
such as transport and leisure.
The network is based on a Gigabit backbone linking four major
council sites in Cambridge, Ely, Huntingdon, and March and is
supported by a wireless back-up link.
The network is the first county-wide broadband project to be
awarded Pathfinder status - e-government trailblazers that are
designed to foster best practice among local authorities.
The Government is keen to boost the roll-out of broadband. Last
month the Office of Government Commerce advertised in the Official
Journal of the European Communities inviting suppliers to register
an interest in bidding to provide the technology across local and
national government bodies.