Alan Lees has been on his travels, meeting and listening to customers across Scotland. Having signed the contract for the Scottish Wide Area Network (SWAN) last year, it’s an increasingly busy job.
BT is responsible for connecting GPs, pharmacies, hospitals, schools and council sites, providing the digital backbone for Scotland’s public services – a task that the company is highly committed to doing.
Lees, BT’s director in Scotland, has therefore been listening first hand to some of the challenges and opportunities faced, so that the right resources can be deployed to support communities in Scotland. And with the ink not long dry on the contract, there’s plenty of folk to meet.
Lees talks about a recent trip to Kirkwall as council and health board teams prepare for the 2025 Island Games. “They’re going to be flooded with people in Orkney next July, and they’re desperate to have the connectivity in place to show themselves off to the world, because tourism is such an important industry,” he says.
“They want the ability to show Orkney at its best, and to generate income, so you can understand that what we’re doing is going to make a huge difference to that local economy. And this is our opportunity to provide that world-class connectivity to support that.”
It’s been a busy time for the company. BT has just hit an important milestone for SWAN, a six-year contract awarded by government. The company has helped more than 2,000 sites transition to its infrastructure, with approximately a third of the 5,000-plus sites now connected to the network. And they are no ordinary customers. They are the many schools, hospitals, ambulance stations and local government buildings that provide vital services to Scotland’s population.
“It’s an enormous infrastructure undertaking for us,” says Lees. “We’re picking up the pace all the time and hitting some of the more difficult to reach areas as well, which has been great.”
He adds: “We’re heavily engaged with all our customers to make sure we’re delivering their requirements as and when they need them, but we’re also encouraging them to migrate as quickly as possible to get that benefit and efficiency that they signed up to.”
And those benefits can be transformative. “As well as the fact we will never run out of capacity on our core network, which was one of the reasons we were chosen in the first place, it’s the fact that we’re delivering much higher bandwidth than our customers could previously access,” adds Lees.
“So, from a schools perspective, that’s been great, because they can do so much more with their online education, and it brings that capacity for hospitals. But also, it’s really important that they’re getting that high-speed connectivity to improve the care that they give to the local community.”
The public sector is currently constrained by resources, amid tight spending regimes. In September, finance secretary Shona Robison announced cuts of £500 million to the Scottish Government’s budget, and vowed to try and “maximise efficiencies” across public bodies. On that front, BT stands ready to help.
“Effectively, they’re looking for technology to provide more efficiency that can allow them to make those budgetary savings,” says Lees.
“So, they’re looking at how networks can help them operate better, how Internet of Things (IoT) can improve the way public services are delivered, how technology can enhance the flow of data across the health system, between GPs and patients, and then hospitals. It’s those skills and experience that we can help bring to bear in supporting that mission.”
And it helps that BT has access to an extensive network of partners. “We’re plugged into a global ecosystem of technology expertise,” adds Lees. “As well as driving the connectivity, we’re also looking at how we can deploy some of the digital solutions around virtual care and AI diagnostics, the scanning technologies that will ultimately help reduce waiting lists.
“It’s that opportunity, through ourselves and partners, where we can do the things that are important to the health service by using some of the technologies that we can deploy across the top of our network.”
AI is a technology BT is seeing increased demand for. Lees says there is enormous potential for it, but there is a lot to be done before it can be deployed widely. “It’s not just the technology itself, there’s got to be a back end to it all, where the data is stored and how it can be accessed,” he says.
“There’s a desire to use it; we all want to improve healthcare outcomes and we’re working hard with health boards and NHS National Services Scotland (NSS) to look at how we effectively do that, where it’s appropriate.”
Migrating customers across to full fibre networks will be critical to support the delivery of AI systems, and other technologies. BT is committed to that task but is also preparing for the shutdown of its legacy analogue network, based on copper wires and exchanges, by January 2027.
In fact, Lees says they are ahead of that timetable for most customers, who they expect to help transition by December next year to the “All-IP” environment. “This will be a gamechanger, not only in capacity gains, where the old network is increasingly struggling to keep up with the demands of digital. But it’s also vital to delivering a cleaner and greener network, which is much more efficient in energy consumption terms.”
Reducing carbon is not the only benefit to the decommissioning of the Public Switched Telephone Network (PTSN). As well as retiring the old exchange buildings, which will be surplus to requirements – and repurposing them where possible – BT has also been looking at the innovation opportunities of fully digital infrastructure.
Through SWAN, the company has set up an “innovation fund”, which is designed to help public sector bodies not only strengthen their connectivity, but to use it to push the boundaries of service delivery. The company is in discussions with customers about deploying its technology and connectivity knowhow to provide “immersive spaces” for children – in an educational and wellbeing context.
He adds: “We’re really proud of that work, but we’re also looking to innovate jointly with other SWAN customers, to enable them to do things better.” The innovation fund is part of the SWAN contract and is open to applications, of which NHS Highland was a successful example.
Lees says he would like to spread the word among SWAN members so they understand that the fund is available, and they can make use of it. It also goes back to the spending constraints currently faced by public sector bodies, and the fund could go some way to ensuring that technology transformation doesn’t stall because of a challenging fiscal environment.
“It gives us an opportunity to do that proof-of-concept work,” adds Lees, whose eagerness to work collaboratively with the public sector is palpable. For example, he believes BT has enormous scope to help councils boost their performance, with enhanced connectivity but also specific challenges.
In Stirling, the company helped drive up footfall through the city centre, with an augmented reality app (Stirling XR) built on top of BT’s 5G network. Those connectivity solutions can them help deliver services into the wider communities, especially in areas which have been perhaps excluded in the past.
And for those still struggling for a superlative full fibre experience, BT also benefits from its connection to EE’s mobile network. EE’s 4G service now covers 78 per cent of Scotland’s geography and counting, more than any other network.
The takeaway message Lees hopes to convey, though, is that BT has you covered: there is virtually nothing that can’t be secured from a technology perspective, from membership of SWAN and beyond. Joining is not only helping members save potentially hundreds of thousands of pounds – as they have been able to do with customers – but being part of it connects customers into a much bigger world of possibilities.
“We have relationships with just about every partner for every IT decision you’re ever likely to make,” says Lees.
For further information about SWAN visit: www.swan.scot
Partner Content in association with BT