Northern Ireland Councils Network Services Pre Market engagement

Armagh City, Banbridge and Craigavon Borough Council plans to procure Network Services on behalf of itself and the nine other Northern Ireland councils outside Belfast for a period of up to 10 years. The services will make use of new fibre infrastructure delivered with grant funding support from the Department for Digital, Culture Media and Sport’s LFFN and RGC funds through the Council’s contract with Eir and through the Full Fibre Northern Ireland contract with Fibrus. Full Fibre Northern Ireland is a consortium of the ten Northern Ireland councils outside Belfast. Additional information: The councils are. Armagh City, Banbridge and Craigavon Borough Council. Antrim & Newtownabbey Borough Council. Ards and North Down Borough Council. Causeway Coast and Glens Borough Council. Derry City and Strabane District Council. Fermanagh and Omagh District Council. Lisburn and Castlereagh City Council. Mid and East Antrim Borough Council. Mid Ulster District Council. Newry, Mourne and Down District Council. The current expectation is that an OpenProcedure will be used to procure the services. The Council intends that each council will have a separate contract with the Network Services Supplier, but that the contracts will be almost identical. The councils plan to work together in a user group to ensure that a consistent approach is used wherever appropriate. The councils require a range of Network Services, including: Wide Area Network connectivity services. Provider management, so that the Supplier manages carriers, equipment suppliers and services suppliers to create a cohesive service. Carrier services and leased lines, providing the underlying physical infrastructure. Networking and other equipment. Service Management functions, including the full scope of ITIL. Ancillary services, such as content filtering, firewalls, home and remote working solutions, security services, and other services. These may be third party services. The Network Services service supplier must initially use the infrastructure currently being built by Eir, Fibrus and Openreach, and partly funded by DCMS (Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport).