Dark Fibre Carmarthenshire

£3.5m

City Deal Funding

32 Strategic sites connected

Overview

ITS has been appointed to build a dedicated dark fibre network to 32 public sector sites across Carmarthenshire.

This new network, set to be fully operational by December 2026, will deliver enhanced capacity and speed, facilitating secure data sharing and storage. It will support collaboration and drive improvements in internal services across public sector organisations.

This new infrastructure will futureproof the digital capabilities of Hywel Dda University Health Board, the University of Wales Trinity St David, Coleg Sir Gâr and Carmarthenshire County Council.

Providing flexibility and scalability, it will deliver a range of benefits to enhance health and education-based research and development. Additionally, the network will help drive innovation to meet evolving public sector needs as well as the communities and businesses they support.

Project Objectives

1

Future proof connectivity
This new network has the capacity to meet increasing demands for data and improved digital services to meet the evolving needs of people, patients, customers, institutions and communities.
2

Drive innovation
Dedicated fibre will enable the public sector to test and use new technologies without compromising on speed of delivering and maintaining current service provision.
3

Improve collaboration
Future collaboration between local government, health and education was a key driver for this project. Enabling them to share high volumes of data in an extremely secure way with the ability to analyse that data in real-time, to help make data driven decisions.

Project Timeline

Scoping project March 2024
Workshops held with partners to provide an overview of the proposed approach; determine partner requirements and agree next steps for implementation.

Complete
Prior Information Notice 15th March 2024
Notice published on Sell2Wales informing potential bidders of our intention to go to market.

Complete
Site identification April - June 2024
Partners submitted details of site locations and dark fibre requirements eg resilience, diversity etc.

Complete
Market engagement April 2024
Eight suppliers attended market engagement sessions, which covered project requirements, indicative timescales and sites to be included. Feedback helped to shape the project and inform the route to market.

Complete
Memorandum of understanding April - July 2024
Agreement signed between the Digital Infrastructure Programme and eight regional partners enabling the programme to run the procurement exercise on behalf of the regions public sector.

Complete
Develop ITT documentation June - August 2024
Market engagement confirmed that the CCS Gigabit capable connectivity DPS RM6095 was the most suitable route to market, allowing existing and new entrants to register to take part in the tender opportunity.

Complete
Expression of interest 18th July 2024
This was issued to all providers on the RM6095 DPS so they could register their intention to bid. Closed for submissions on 25th July 2024.

Complete
Invitation to tender 1st August 2024
This was issued on eTender Wales to suppliers who completed the expression of interest.
- 20^th September 2024 - Last date for submission of clarificatory questions
- 10^th October 2024 - Deadline for bid submissions
Complete
Evaluation 16th - 25th October 2024
Bids were reviewed by the evaluation panel.

Complete
Contract award March 2025
ITS were identified as the preferred supplier and awarded the contract.

Complete
Project delivery March 2025 - December 2026
In line with suppliers implementation plan.

In Progress
Project Completion December 2026
Project is on target for all sites to be completed by December 2026.

Pending

Delivered in partnership with...

This project will benefit the following regional partners and is being delivered by