Midland Heart is overhauling its information network across 150 sites in the West Midlands following a deal with NTL Telewest Business. The new NTL network is already live at Midland Heart’s headquarters and three satellite offices, with the remaining four offices and housing sites expected to be live by July 2009.
The housing and regeneration agency, which manages over 32,000 houses and employs 1350 staff, is rolling out a high-speed next-generation network service as part of its continuing expansion. The private network will ensure immediate, consistent and resilient access to its operational information throughout the West Midlands, Leicestershire, Northamptonshire and Staffordshire.
Ian Butterworth, head of ICT, Midland Heart, said, “We wanted a network that was both modern and extremely resilient to ensure that information flows freely across all our operations. The ability to manage and access information without interruption every day is critical to delivering reliable, quality services to the communities we serve.”
The internet protocol virtual private network (IPVPN), which has 100 Mbps connectivity to principal sites and up to 10 Mbps to others, will connect Midland Heart’s headquarters in Birmingham to all of its other locations, giving the organisation one of the fastest and most sophisticated private networks in the housing sector. The multi-protocol label switching (MPLS) network design makes communications between each site very resilient to failure and enables extra capacity to be added as required.
David Bell, business sales manager, NTL Telewest, said, “Achieving heightened levels of operational resilience is not just about the ability to connect to a next-generation network, it’s also about quality network design and the delivery of the right services at each point.”
