Magdalene, a part of M Group Services’ Telecom Division, has been awarded two National Grid contracts, to deliver critical communications services across England & Wales.
As a leading UK telecommunications infrastructure services provider, Magdalene will support and maintain the National Grid Operational Telecom Network infrastructure (OpTel), which is essential to the safe, secure, reliable, and economic operation of the electricity transmission network.
The OpTel contract sees Magdalene work with National Grid until 2035, with a second contract awarded for an initial five years. This selection and award follows a diligent two-year procurement process to test and finalise the Magdalene technical solutions.
As part of this contract Magdalene will deliver a transformative nationwide network upgrade of the current OpTel infrastructure. This approach will future proof the current OpTel estate, while maximising the reuse of existing deployed power, accommodation and HVAC systems. The implementation of the new solution also supports the future grid evolution to Smart Substations and simplification of substation communication network layouts.
As part of the same OpTel upgrade programme, Magdalene is designing and building a resilient High Bandwidth Optical Overlay network. This provides the benefits of both packet and wavelength services to each of the National Grid substations. Partnered with ADTRAN, Magdalene will provide the network technology with the capacity to support the future network services.
The second contract includes the management of the data centre infrastructure and connectivity with key industry stakeholders.
Through both contracts, Magdalene will utilise full fibre infrastructure to upgrade the existing MPLS network, with its class leading communication partner, BT. National Grid will benefit from the Secure IP Connect product that will deliver high-capacity fibre-based connectivity to all its partner sites.
Sam Saunders, Managing Director at Magdalene, said: “We are very pleased to secure this contract following an extensive and exhaustive procurement process. The award of these contracts reflects National Grid’s confidence in our innovative technical solution and robust service delivery model. This underlines Magdalene’s position as the principal service partner in the Utility Critical Communications sector.”
Throughout this framework, Magdalene will be supporting National Grid in the shared goal to future proof essential network infrastructure, to deliver a higher quality of service to its clients and customers.
