11 November 2016
Updata says the agreement will enable it to provide enterprise networking services in “all corners of the UK”.
Capita and SSE Enterprise Telecoms have announced what’s claimed to be a ground-breaking network sharing deal.
Under a seven-year agreement, Capita and its subsidiary Updata Infrastructure will see each of their eight regional data centres connected directly and diversely to SSE’s national fibre optic network.
It’s claimed this new capability will provide rapidly scalable, high availability, highly secure (CESG CAS-T) connectivity for their major government and corporate clients.
Updata MD Béatrice Butsana-Sita (pictured left) says the agreement will enable the company to provide dedicated networking services to enterprise-sized clients who need connectivity in “all corners of the UK”.
For SSE, the deal will mean the addition of 350 BT exchanges to its network footprint.
The company says the 300+ IT and telecoms service provider customers who use its national Ethernet connectivity services will see their service coverage double from 250,000 business postcodes to more than 500,000.
SSE adds that the partnership shaves two years off its Project Edge network expansion programme plan and also reduces its cost by at least 50 per cent.
Colin Sempill, MD at SSE Enterprise Telecoms, says: “Network and infrastructure sharing models like this are commonplace in mobile telephony markets, but very unusual on this scale in fixed line telecoms.
"Doubling our service footprint in a relatively short period of time will make us one of the largest fixed line telecoms providers in the UK at a stroke.”
