KBR grabs £1m Northumberland deal

School's out: KBR's installation will allow 40,000 students to work remotely

County Durham-based reseller KBR IT & Networking Solutions has celebrated bagging a contract worth more than £1m with Northumberland County Council.

The VAR is a Trapeze Networks Master Reseller and has been tasked with installing the wireless LAN (WLAN) vendor's kit in upwards of 200 schools across the county. The project will afford more than 40,000 children mobile working capabilities, as well as improving teachers' communications system.

KBR's sales and marketing director Robin Price said: "We are delighted to have won this competitive tender and are confident that we will be able to assist Northumberland County Council in meeting its goals for the future."

By the end of this year the VAR will have rolled out a network with 4,000 mobility points. KBR claimed the installation would give teachers and pupils up and down Northumberland secure and remotely manageable wireless access.

Richard Taylor, ICT and eLearning Advisor for Northumberland County Council's Children’s Services Directorate, said: "Our schools can range from 2 to 2000 pupils and we work with 40,000 children from infants to sixth formers. We required a comprehensive, managed enterprise wireless network capable of meeting our specification for a large number of devices in schools.

"It is the future of education - one device per pupil - and we have already seen real growth in the number of netbooks, laptops and PDAs being used in schools."

Trapeze's regional director for the UK and Ireland Mark Smith added: "KBR is a long-standing specialist in the area of internal and external WiFi. KBR’s focus on the North East and their provision of localised services and support makes them the perfect partner for Northumberland County Council.”