The Ministry of Defence (MoD) has awarded a £42 million contract to BT to upgrade the broadband connectivity of its military and civilian sites.
Last week it published the award notice for a contract that came into effect last December and is set to run until the end of March 2028 for ‘defence enabling broadband’.
This is the second major deal for BT in providing connectivity for the defence sector to become public in a matter of days, following the recent announcement of its contract to provide the MOD Wi-Fi service for British Army sites.
Supporting documents for the broadband enabling agreement indicate that it involves a range of internet bandwidth service requirements with a target of at least 95% availability for each use case and to cover all of the UK.
They also show that the contract includes the broadband service, ancillary items, service management and generic requirements but stops short of valued added services.
Termination date
The deal comes partly in response to the plan to terminate the PSTN exchanges for telephony by December 2025, which requires a widespread transfer to VoIP services.
It also reflects the fact that many current broadband services for the defence estate have become redundant with changes in technology, although there is no plan for a centralised migration programme.
