DTI picks approved broadband suppliers

The Department of Trade and Industry has selected 17 approved broadband suppliers eligible to bid for contracts under the terms of its Broadband Aggregation Project.

The move will allow the government's nine regional aggregation bodies in England to start co-ordinating broadband procurement for public bodies such as the NHS and local authorities.

Although public bodies can still purchase broadband services via their current contracts, the aim is to accelerate delivery of broadband infrastructure and services to achieve the government's goal of 100 per cent availability in the UK by 2005.

The framework agreements also build on the aggregation bodies' work with the NHS and Department for Education and Skills to buy the connectivity for the rollout of the NHS N3 network, and to ensure broadband connectivity to all schools by 2006.

Announcing the contracts, UK e-commerce minister Stephen Timms said in a statement: "We have ambitious goals for broadband availability in Britain, and today I am delighted to push the agenda forward.

"By pooling the broadband needs and finances of the public sector, we are making the provision of services far cheaper for the purchasers and far more attractive for the service providers."

Timms added that pooling public sector broadband purchasing ensures that more rural areas, previously seen as too remote or uneconomic for the infrastructure, will now have access to the social and business benefits of broadband technology.

The contracts have been awarded to BT, Cable & Wireless, Colt, EasyNet, Energis, Equinox, Kingston Communications, Logicalis, MLL, Neos Networks (SSET), Networks by Wireless, NTL, Research Machines, Synetrix, Telewest Communications, Thus and Your Communications.

Pierre Danon, chief executive at BT Retail, said in a statement: "Our industry, along with government at all levels, has a huge role to play to accelerate broadband availability, demand and take-up.

"The Broadband Aggregation Project is a real breakthrough and will allow the public sector to keep pace with technological change."