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Council makes changes to ensure quality, savings in communications services it contracts

Annual savings of 40,000€ predicted

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With an eye toward improving the quality of communication services and simultaneously reducing their cost, the Formentera Island Council has decided to put its contracts for mobile and landline telephone, Internet access and switchboard maintenance services up for public tender.

It is hoped that the call for bids, launched by the Council's Office of Information Technologies, will effect noticeable improvements in service, reductions in cost and solutions for the Council's expanding infrastructural needs.

Telephone service for both landlines and mobile phones, and Internet, are currently contracted through different operators, a fact that implies increased costs.

Technical and administrative reports concerning the Council's contracting of voice and data communication services predict an approximate savings of 30% on its current payments. Such a savings would translate into an annual reduction of 40,852€, given the present cost of these services is 164,462€.

Aside from the economic savings envisioned, a  re-contracting of the services would also suppose updated equipment and improved switchboard control and network connection between buildings. The change would also effect improvements in Internet provision, since it would require the physical change from two ADSL lines to a single fibre-optic line at the Council's main building and new installation of ADSL lines at the remaining municipal buildings. The measures will allow for a simplification of both contracts and services.

All told, three different service packages are being put up for public bidding: landline and mobile phone services, switchboard and IP services and Internet access services. The call for bids was published 10 January in last month's edition of the Official Journal of the European Union.

At the time of their presentation, the services were opened for tender with an estimated value of 123,610€, not including VAT. Service provision will be for three years with the possibility of a one-year renewal. The deadline for bids is 13 March. The newly-contracted services are hoped to be in place by next summer.