The Client

BT are the UK’s largest ICT supplier, providing a wide range of Telecoms and Data products and services to a vast array of organisations including Central government, Local Authority, Health, Emergency Services and Commercial organisations.

Tayside Police turned to BT when they were asked to provide security for the G8 Summit. TaysidePolice described the G8 Summit as the Biggest Challenge in UK Policing History.

All eight Scottish police forces, the British Transport Police, Ministry of Defence Police and the Civil Nuclear Constabulary were involved. There was also liaison with the Metropolitan Police and the Association of Chief Police Officers in England and Wales as forces south of the border were required to provide support.

Getting help from other forces and agencies is called mutual aid and the G8 summit has presented the police force in Scotland with an opportunity to pool resources on a scale that's never been done before.

The Challenge

The requirement for the G8 Summit was to provide a secure, resilient and robust data and voice cabling network in a very short period of time, and to provide 24 hour on site support prior during and after the actual event.

The solution

Elan’s professional services team provided the client with management of all tasks, resources and timeframes, throughout the duration of the project these included reporting, status, meeting facilitation, change management and process management.

Elan installed a structured cabling solution utilising one of the leading manufacturers cabling systems. With a fibre back bone and multicore cables connecting all the main buildings at Gleneagles to a Chassis based networking hardware platform and BT telecommunications infrastructure.

Timescales were critical as asking George Bush, Vladimir Putin and Tony Blair to wait or postpone their meeting was not an option.

During the Summit talks we had engineers on site providing 24 hour cover and support with everything they required to carry out emergency repairs to the infrastructure should it prove necessary.