Mason Communications, the telecommunications consultancy belonging to IT group Datatec, is managing two large contracts in the UK worth lb5 million (R64 million) and lb6 million (R76.8 million), the group announced this week.
A third contract is expected to help a Mason client to secure savings of up to lb10 million (R128 million) over the next five years, although the actual value of that contract was not disclosed.
While Mason Communications is managing the projects, the total values will not be going to the consultancy as certain items such as hardware will be provided by third-parties.
One of the contracts, worth a total of lb5 million, involves Mason programme-managing the installation of 200 cameras in Liverpool, in the city centre and surrounding areas, as part of a crime prevention and traffic monitoring project.
The project also involves the creation of a new control room, where 60 TV screens monitor images from the cameras 24 hours a day, while 12 of the camera poles will include "help points" facilitating direct contact with the control room.
A second project worth lb6 million is called the "Harmonics" project and involves managing the provision of bandwidth on demand on core networks in Europe, and on migrating existing last-mile access networks, or deploying new wireless networks.
Datatec financial director David Pfaff says: "This project is funded by the European Commission to enable high-speed Internet access for consumers."
High capacities have been deemed necessary to allow each household to receive three MPEG video channels simultaneously (assuming a demand of 5Mbps each). The remaining 10Mbps of downstream capacity is considered necessary to enable other services such as Internet, interactive gaming and multi-party conferencing.
Datatec says a core part of Mason`s ongoing work is to evaluate a business case for operators, based on detailed technical design and associated capital expenditure, together with commercial and operational considerations including operational expenditure.
"Mason was selected because of its experience and knowledge in techno-economic evaluation of new technologies such as GSM to UMTS migration."
In another engagement, Mason Communications played a central role in helping ElectraLink, a provider of network and communication services to electricity and gas utilities, save lb10 million on its managed network services over the next five years.
ElectraLink accepted Mason`s recommendation to embark on a formal procurement process to solicit proposals from other service providers when the existing contract expired. Mason helped to evaluate the responses on service levels, network performance and cost, with EDS being chosen as the new service provider.
The new service level agreement offers substantial improvements in network performance for ElectraLink`s users as well as cost savings.
Pfaff says Mason Communications is proving to be one of Datatec`s star performers. "It has 25 companies within the London top FTSE top 100 companies as its clients."
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