SIAE UK and the Local Government sector

UK Local Government represents one of the main markets for the Wide Area Network solutions designed and delivered by SIAE UK.

A growing percentage of the UK's Unitary Authorities, County Councils, and the many District and Borough Councils are recognising the leveraged effect of transferring from leased line connectivity models to that of procuring their own private Wide Area Network as a capital asset with relatively low running costs.

At a base performance level, the ability of SIAE UK to design, build and support a private Wide Area Network for a Local Authority yields a number of clear benefits.

These include:-

• An opportunity to convert the Authority's communications spend from revenue to a capital project spend, achieving a Rapid ROI, and creating future revenue budgets for the achievemnt of other pressing priotities.



• An opportunity to migrate the existing disparate networks to a converged IP network, achieving significant economies in the process and modernising the network at the same time.



• Enabling additional savings through the potential for VOIP, rationalised data backups and business continuity services, centralised monitoring stations for public area surveilance etc



• Enabling provision of futuristic services such as mobility connectivity to public sector workers (such as social workers, traffic wardens etc), area coverage for dispersed Telecare services, mobile CCTV monitoring, Citizen Connect kiosks, etc



• An opportunity to connect additional sites. It may not be generally realised that the costs to connect the average site decreases as the number of sites increases.



• An opportunity to provide syncrhonous bandwidths. Standard wireless solutions provide symmetric bandwidths, and this is a major benefit as increasing numbers of Local Authority sites are becoming sources of infromation rather than just sinks of information - hence the increasing imporrtance of upstream bandwidth.



• An opportunity to provide increased bandwidth. In purchasing a capability rather than a bandwidth, it is important to recognise that a side benefit is that the cost per Mbps of bandwidth decreases with increasing bandwidth. This is a hardware law not unlike that applying to hard disc drives in computers - there is a set cost required to procure the chassis, the power supply, the internal control mechanisms, in-built self monitoring etc, and after that the additional cost of providing additional bandwidths is reltively low.

SIAE UK works with Local Authorities (both drectly and through selected partners) to identify options, and to generate detail plans, costs and timescales as a part of our service without commitment. This approach allows us to work closely with the customer and to develop a relationship prior to contract award. These relationships are built on trust and professional respect.

SIAE UK is fully up to speed on the Transfomational Government imperatives and believes that its wireless communication service is important not simply in its own right, but as an enabler and key facilitator in the change towards shared services which are such an important part of the strategy to cut costs while improving services. For example, when two adjacent Authorities have available a single, joined-up, converged network, many new economies become possible as suddenly the shared services agenda has a delivery mechanism. The number of monitoring stations for Public Area surveillance cameras for example can be reduced, applications such as payroll can be deployed from a single centre rather than two. Against this yardstick, it simply makes ecnomic sense to recognise that a wireless WAN is now a strategic rather than a tactical option and must be raised in priority in order to maxinmise the savings possible and deliver the service improvements that are achievable.

Contact our Sales Team, who will be delighted to receive your call and schedule a discussion with your senior management team to demonstrate the improvements being made by other Local Authorities across the UK.