Lambeth is one the most densely and diversely populated of all the 33 boroughs in London and is home to approximately 330,000 residents. Intercity Technology has worked with Virgin Media Business (VMB) to deliver support and infrastructure to keep the borough and the users of its network connected and productive 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year since 2011.
The seven-year contract was to provide a flexible and modular solution on the convergence of Lambeth’s voice and data networks while reducing costs and improving the user experience. This enabled the council to drive forward its ambition to enable cooperative and new ways of working.
Working with VMB, Intercity specifically provided services linked to Lot 2 of the Network Services Framework (RM1045) which included the monitoring and management of services across the network, enhanced configuration, hardware fixes within set SLAs, and provision of on-site engineer resources, to name just a few.
In-house vs. outsourcing
Following on from its initial partnership with Intercity, Lambeth Council experienced difficulty in keeping and retaining skilled network resources in-house. It therefore required a trusted and reliable partner to help relieve the burden on in-house resource while also ensuring the continuous availability of its services for the public.
Intercity’s answer
Lambeth will now extend the assistance provided by Intercity to include a fully-managed on-site network support service, taking advantage of Intercity’s in-depth back office knowledge of the council’s network estate. This includes having the support team on-call 24/7, business liaison and responsibility for day-to-day running of the entire Lambeth Local Area Network. The company also acts as the interface between VMB services. The flexibility of the service offered by Intercity means that the council will be able to tap into extra resources during peak times, including the annual local elections.
What does the future hold?
Intercity continues to respond to the evolving needs of Lambeth, and there are always ongoing conversations about how it can provide even greater support and act as an important part in the council’s process.
Working together
Lambeth and Intercity’s continued relationship delivers:
- Value for money for the council;
- A new level of flexibility of the service, where Lambeth can add resource when there’s a demand for it;
- Improved efficiency across the board;
- Lower costs.
Read the full case study here to learn more about the Intercity and Lambeth Council partnership
