04 March 2024

Commsworld has secured a contract worth £2.6 million over 10 years to radically transform the connectivity to 42 schools in and around Dundee.

Dundee City Council’s City Governance Committee has given its approval for Commsworld to plan, design, migrate and manage a completely new fibre network service. The future-proofed and enhanced service will be underpinned by a new robust security solution that will boost digital education provision for pupils across the city.

The proposed new high-speed fibre internet service is replacing Dundee City Council’s ageing infrastructure currently in place in primary and secondary schools in the city which, due to the rapidly increasing use of digital devices and internet for online learning, is under increasing strain.

It will see Commsworld invest in 40km of new fibre infrastructure across Dundee, with schools gaining access to the fastest full fibre internet connection with initial speeds at a minimum of 1Gbps and scalable to 10Gbs per school.

The new infrastructure will allow each school to boost their digital learning capabilities, enabling greater use of cloud-based services. This includes full reliability, enhanced security, and safeguarding support, plus fully filtered real-time connectivity to ensure all pupils are kept safe online.

Commsworld will also build in extra capacity that will be able to easily absorb any future increases in demand in the years to come.

The new fibre infrastructure will be linked to Commsworld’s Optical Core Network (OCN), a next generation multi-million pound network in which it continues to invest, and which was built specifically to boost security and resilience of digital infrastructure to organisations not only in Scotland but also the length and breadth of the UK.

“These services will allow digital learning to be upgraded even further in schools and enable greater use of cloud-based services. The tender is structured in such a way that spare capacity will be built-in to ensure future growth can be easily accommodated,” said Councillor John Alexander, leader of Dundee City Council.

“We are keen to achieve Digital Schools Award Scotland (DSAS) status by next summer and, with digital infrastructure such as high-speed fibre internet as a key plank of digital learning, this contract will be an important step on that journey,” said Councillor Stewart Hunter, convener of Dundee City Council’s children, Families and Communities Committee.