Network equipment player 3Com and networking consultancy Digital Wire have signed a €186,000 contract to provide Belfast City Council with a local area network upgrade.
The implementation is understood to be the largest local authority network in Northern Ireland and will support 1,000 computer users across 30 sites.
The equipment for the project has been supplied by 3Com and the local area network (LAN) was designed by Digital Wire.
According to both 3Com and Digital Wire the contract was won on the back of the resilience of 3Com’s products as well as the scalability of the network design.
It is understood that the network upgrade will result in the network running eight times faster than before.
Commenting on the contract win, 3Com Ireland’s Ray O’Connor explained: “The new system is giving higher link speeds as well as more resilience so that if one of Belfast City Council’s floors goes down the network still stays up and running.
“The addition of switching capabilities in the new infrastructure means that data traffic can be effectively filtered and transmitted on a one-to-many basis without the network being flooded,” O’Connor added.
Terry McNeill, consultant with Information Services Belfast explains: “The new infrastructure will speed traffic up six to eight times faster than the previous network and therefore will result in increased productivity and performance.
“The new network will assist in resolving bandwidth issues and eliminate local network traffic bottlenecks. It will be far easier to access whatever data is required, whenever it’s needed, right across the network,” McNeill said.
By John Kennedy
