The network will also enable the council to accelerate the rollout of home-working initiatives for employees, which form part of its wider commitment to reduce operational costs and on-site overheads.

East Lothian went to Updata Infrastructure to build and manage core network connectivity to both school and council corporate sites. The WAN will support the council's plan to move towards an accredited Public Services Network (PSN) architecture, which enables easier links with other organisations to support shared services.

Until now, East Lothian had used BT for WAN services, but it wanted an alternative supplier after significant cost increases of 30 percent over the previous five years, and a perceived lack of flexibility and resilience for those services.

Updata was selected to initially provide a single network to connect the region's 45 schools, due to go-live by August 2012. Later in 2012, a second dedicated network will be introduced into the infrastructure for 75 corporate council sites, including library buildings and council offices.

The network will feature a high-capacity core fibre ring connecting six BT exchanges, and connection speeds will range between a minimum of 10Mbps up to 100Mbps.