Agenda item

Oldham Council Local Full Fibre Network

Minutes:

The Cabinet gave consideration to a report of the Senior Responsible Officer Digital which sought approval to enter into the Collaboration Agreement over 10 years with GMCA for delivery, governance, and shared funding of GM One Network.

In March 2018, Greater Manchester (GM) secured 25% of the UK Local Full Fibre Network (LFFN) funding pot, offered by the Department for Culture Media and Sport (DCMS), to connect over 1,600 public sector sites across GM.

The LFFN Programme is expected to have a transformational impact on digital infrastructure in GM - leading to an increase in full fibre coverage throughout Greater Manchester.

Each of the public sector organisations that are part of the LFFN anchor tenancy programme operate a “Wide Area Network” (WAN). The Oldham Council “WAN” provides network services for all Council, Unity Partnership, Miocare, CCG staff who operate from a Council building / asset and the public at Oldham Council Libraries, Access Oldham, Oldham Tommyfield Market.

 Oldham Council WAN services are currently procured from four major telecoms companies and include both infrastructure and services. Recognising that LFFN is providing a shared fibre infrastructure, in 2020; Oldham Council with several other partners considered the option for jointly procuring a new “WAN” service across the fibre infrastructure for their own organisational needs to take advantage of economies of scale.

Consequently, the principal drivers for the creation of a GM One Wide Area Network were identified as being to:

·         Consolidate and reduce the total costs of ownership of WAN services procured from other telecom companies.

 

·         Support GM to become a globally recognised digital city region.

 

·         Realise the benefits of the Local Full Fibre Network investment.

Oldham Council alongside TfGM and three other Local Authorities have collaborated in a GMCA led procurement process to assess the costs and effort to “light up” and provide network services for 1,600 sites throughout GMCA including 71 Oldham Council buildings and assets and to identify a preferred bidder to deliver the GM One Network.

The procurement exercise was now complete, a preferred supplier has been identified for the Greater Manchester One Network to deliver the Wide Area Network services for Oldham Council; GMCA including GM Fire & Rescue, GMCA/TFGM Urban Traffic Controls Signals and select TFGM sites, and Stockport, Bury and Rochdale Councils.

The installation of the LFFN fibre network was expected to be completed April 2022; the next steps will be to “light the fibre” network infrastructure; migrate Council buildings to the new optical high-speed network and decommission legacy network services.


Options /alternatives considered

Option 1 - Do nothing and stay “as is”.

With this option, the Council would make no use of the LFFN infrastructure at the 71 LFFN sites.

Option 2 - Subscribe to the GM One WAN service.

With this option, the Council would subscribe to the GM One service to make

use of the LFFN infrastructure at the 71 sites. Oldham Council would not own

the network equipment.

Option 3 - Contract with the Council’s Current Network Partner. 

With this option, the Council would contract with their current network partner to make use of the LFFN infrastructure at the 71 sites. The Council would own all the equipment and the current network partner would provide a managed service including maintenance.

 

RESOLVED – That the Council would consider the commercially sensitive information contained at Item 23 of the agenda before making a decision.

Supporting documents: