PICTS Site Cabling Services

Concepts

• seascale
• telecommunications network
• openreach limited
• site cabling services
• site cabling services contract
• delivery of an effective network service
• fibre cabling
• existing cabling infrastructure
• separate network service provider
• nuclear site

Location

Seascale

Description

Site Cabling Services

Total Quantity or Scope

Following a negotiated procurement process the Site Cabling Services contract has been awarded to Openreach Limited. The stated contract value of £7,987,015 is inclusive of the initial five year term and optional one year extension. The required service is solely in relation to the existing inground ducting, copper telephone wires and fibre cabling (the Cabling Infrastructure) that runs through the nuclear site located in West Cumbria. This Cabling Infrastructure forms part of the national telecommunications network which is owned by British Telecommunications PLC and managed and operated by Openreach Limited. A direct contract with Openreach Limited for Site Cabling Services will ensure that the existing Cabling Infrastructure is proactively managed, maintained and re-purposed as appropriate to support delivery of an effective network service. The network service will be provided by a separate network service provider under a separate contract. Given the size of the nuclear site, which covers six sq. kilometres, effective pro-active management of the far-reaching Cabling Infrastructure, to free up capacity within the ducts as an example, will readily allow the installation of new copper telephone wires and network fibre cabling in the future, without the need for civil engineering works. Simplistically the Site Cabling Services contract will provide the cables to the buildings at the nuclear site, which the network service provider will then use to connect and create a full end to end network service across all sites. In developing the requirements care has been taken to ensure that only services relating to Cabling Infrastructure have been included and the contract specifically excludes any network service that could be provided directly by a network services provider.

Award Detail

Award Criteria

CPV Codes

• 32412100 - Telecommunications network

Indicators

• Award on basis of price.

Legal Justification

UK national communications infrastructure is a national asset that is owned by British Telecommunications PLC. Under the ‘manage and operate’ assets arrangement between British Telecommunications plc and Openreach Ltd, Openreach Ltd have exclusive rights to access and use the UK national infrastructure. The exclusivity of this position is regulated by Ofcom, whereby Openreach Ltd are obligated to treat all customers equally. This exclusivity arrangement provides the lawful justification for direct award of the Site Cabling Services contract to Openreach Ltd in compliance with the Public Contracts Regulations 2015, Regulation 32 use of negotiated procedure without prior publication, specifically paragraph 2, sub-paragraph (b) bullet (iii) whereby: • the negotiated procedure without prior publication may be used for public service contracts, where the service can be supplied only by a particular economic operator for the protection of exclusive rights.