Telecommunications services

Description

The contracting authority on behalf of the Secretary of State for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO), the Secretary of State for the Department for International Development (DFID) and the British Council (BC) (collectively the ‘Partners’) awarded the ECHO framework agreement for information and telecommunications services in September 2010. The framework agreement included the replacement of the current FCO telecommunications network (FTN) contract and a number of related, primarily overseas, communications contracts and services. The services made available under the framework agreement included: 1) application services, 2) network services, and 3) lifecycle services. The services are delivered globally, include operation and management of legacy services, covering a range of UK Government security impact levels. All services are required to align and support the current and future government standards, and include but are not limited to: 1) application services: the provision of a range of voice and other application services on a global basis, which are anticipated to include, but are not limited to: — voice, — video, — instant messaging, — mail, — unified communications, — data transfer, — collaborative working and knowledge sharing, — training, — hosting, — rapid deployment, and — any other application services including those required for any part of the service lifecycle; 2) network services: the provision of network connectivity and other network services on a global basis and separated as required from other echo and non-echo services, including but not limited to: — managed network, — LAN, — internet access, — PSTN access, — network access, — remote access, and — any other network and network related services including those required for any part of the service lifecycle and as they evolve in response to evolution in technology; 3) lifecycle services: the provision of lifecycle services on a global basis. Aspects of the service lifecycle covered include, but are not limited to: — service portfolio evolution, — project management, — design, development and testing, — implementation, — training, — enterprise integration, — operational integration, — exit, — security, — service management, — sustainability, — disaster recovery, — logistics, — moves, adds, deletion and changes, and — management Information and Billing.