Cabling the world

Situation

The FCO had embarked on a major transformation of its global IT system to enable it to keep communicating effectively and securely. Our Premises Cabling Office was commissioned to upgrade the structured cabling across the FCO estate, to meet the requirements of the new system. In short, we needed to cable the world. And we needed to do it in nine months.

Solution

Our installation teams were immediately mobilised to start assessing the cabling and verify it could host the enhanced system. Where the cabling failed, we worked with the local staff on-site to make necessary repairs or provide replacement cabling.

Impact

We  established a systematic schedule of work aligned to the FCO‘s rolling deployment programme. The result was an infrastructure capable of carrying the extremely large bandwidths required by the new IT system and the extra connectivity required to accommodate its different security tiers.

The project was a triumph of co-operation between different teams from across FCO Services. It was fronted by the Premises Cabling Office with vital support throughout from Travel Section, Logistics and our global technical network whose technical expertise and knowledge of embassy infrastructures was vital to the delivery of this complex project.

Due to the accelerated roll-out programme, complex security and logistical issues, the overseas cabling infrastructure was the highest risk facing the successful implementation of the new IT system. Thanks to the expertise and hard work of the whole team, the project was delivered on schedule.