The PSN is core to the government's ICT Strategy and the Cabinet Office hopes that in three years' time 80 percent of its PC-based staff (four million users) will be on the network."The Public Services Network is a fundamental building block of our ICT Strategy, and today's announcement of suppliers to the framework is a huge step forward in providing the infrastructure to deliver services to citizens more efficiently and cheaply," said Francis Maude, Cabinet Office minister. "We are confident that the PSN programme will substantially reduce the cost of communication services across government. [It] will also change the way public sector organisations work and interact, making it possible for government to operate in a much more flexible way, regardless of workers' usual department or office."

The full list of suppliers to the public sector that have been signed to the framework includes Virgin Media Business, Logicalis, BT, Cable & Wireless, Global Cross, Capita, Updata, Fujitsu, MDNX Enterprise Services, eircom, KCOM and Thales.

The PSN will create a network of networks by joining up organisations, departments, authorities and agencies that deliver public services at local, regional and national levels.

A catalogue of PSN services will be sold to the public sector by a number of PSN providers (those listed above), who will connect to Direct Network Service Providers (DNSPs) via the Government Conveyance Network (GCN). The GCN is, in effect, the backbone to the PSN, acting as the gateway between the networks of different service providers.

Notably the government has enlisted SME Updata, perhaps in an attempt to support its , which claims that it has something different to offer the public sector compared to usual suspects BT and Virgin Media.