Virgin Media O2 Business has been appointed to build a dedicated dark fibre network to 34 public sector sites in Llanelli, Swansea and Neath Port Talbot. The new network will improve connectivity in the region to local authorities, healthcare and education partners.
This new network, which will be fully available by December 2025, will offer significantly improved capacity, speed and will allow large amounts of data to be securely shared and saved, enabling collaborative working and helping to improve internal services across public sector organisations.
This new infrastructure will futureproof the digital capabilities of the Welsh Ambulance Service University Trust, Swansea Bay University Health Board, Hywel Dda Health Board, Swansea University, the University of Wales, Trinity St David, and the three local authorities – Neath Port Talbot, Swansea and Carmarthenshire.
Providing flexibility and scalability, it will deliver a range of benefits to enhance health and education-based research and development. Additionally, the network will help drive innovation to meet evolving public sector needs as well as the communities and businesses they support.
Carl Mustad, Assistant Director of Digital Technology at Swansea Bay University Health Board said:
This is an integral step forward for the health boards, local authorities and universities in this area and will help us collaborate and expand our future research and development relationships. Modern networks are essential to provide the backbone for cutting edge telemedicine services, artificial intelligence and improved data management which in turn supports improvements in diagnostics, and patient experience.Carl Mustad, Swansea Bay University Health Board
Future proof connectivityThis new network has the capacity to meet increasing demands for data and improved digital services to meet the evolving needs of people, patients, customers, institutions and communities.
Drive innovationDedicated fibre will enable the public sector to test and use new technologies without compromising on speed of delivering and maintaining current service provision.
Improve collaborationFuture collaboration between local government, health and education was a key driver for this project. Enabling them to share high volumes of data in an extremely secure way with the ability to analyse that data in real-time, to help make data driven decisions.