U.K. education authority taps Unisys for network support

Unisys has won a contract from the Kent Local Education Authority in the United Kingdom to provide a new wide area network, the company announced this week. The contract has a potential value to the company of $7.1 million over three years.

Under the contract, Unisys of Blue Bell, Pa., will provide managed services, helpdesk services, and hardware and software. The deal was inked in the fourth quarter of 2004.

Unisys will provide the network in collaboration with BT Group plc, London; Cisco Systems Inc., San Jose, Calif.; and Microsoft Corp., Redmond, Wash.

The companies are providing the network under a $30.2 million Kent County Council program.

The Kent Community Network is designed to reach all of the schools throughout the Kent Local Education Authority. It will support more than 500 primary and special schools with an average of 260 users in each location, and more than 100 secondary schools.

The design is based on a Cisco network, and its 40 hubs will be hosted in BT Group exchanges. The network will have 50 times the bandwidth capacity of the previous network and bring more than 240,000 pupils online throughout the county.

Unisys has 36,400 employees and annual sales of $5.3 billion. The company ranked No. 36 on Washington Technology's 2004 Top 100 list, which measures federal prime contracting revenue.