British Waterways renew networking deal

British Waterways, the organisation responsible for the upkeep of the national network of canals and rivers has renewed its managed services contract for communications with NextiraOne.

Watford based British Waterways is a public corporation similar to the BBC and receives grants from the Scottish Government and Defra, the department responsible for farming and rural affairs. The organisation has for a number of years been reducing its dependency on the government and Walsh explains that the aim is to become a third-sector organisation such as a trust.

NextiraOne has secured a three year extension to the communications managed services deal it has with British Waterways to provide nationwide support to the voice and data network British Waterways relies on to connect its 15 offices and countless remote locations along the 2,200 miles of canal and river it has to manage. Under the terms of the extended contract NextiraOne will provide its remote performance monitoring and communications infrastructure from its Network Operating Centre.

British Waterways CIO Richard Walsh has managed service agreements with SCC to operate his PC fleet and is a keen supporter of the strategy, as he told CIO UK earlier this year. Walsh described the benefits of the NextiraOne deal was that the Paris based networking specialist has a national footprint and provided him with “timely and speedy support for all our locations”.

Read the full CIO UK interview with British Waterways CIO Richard Walsh