Schools and libraries across York will shortly benefit from faster access to the internet following a contract that has been signed with Kingston inbusiness, part of the Kingston Communications Group.

The £2.27million contract is for three years and will give 14 libraries and 36 schools internet connections that provide faster and more secure access to online resources and e-mail. The council, working in partnership with Learning Connect centres and the People's Network, will be able to provide broadband internet access to the first 30 sites by the end of January 2002, with the other sites being connected during the year.

Kingston inbusiness will supply a fully managed service, along with network performance monitoring, management and maintenance. This will be combined with extensive security measures including virus checking and content screening to prevent unsuitable material being accessed.

The government's vision of Broadband Britain aims to ensure that all citizens can access the internet and email services by 2005. By providing access at libraries across the city, York is well on the way to achieving this goal.

Each of the participating sites in York will be served by a two megabyte per second (2Mb/s) connection, providing much faster access to material on the internet than is currently available and enabling schools to make greater use of information technology, for example, video-conferencing with other schools and exploring collaborative teaching methods.

Janet Looker, City of York Council's executive member for education, said: "As schools increasingly use a range of multimedia material to support teaching and learning, the provision of broadband access in our schools is great news. It will mean both pupils and staff can take full advantage of internet technology and improve educational standards for children in schools across the city."

She continued; "Teaching and learning in the future is increasingly going to use technology and it is a great achievement that over 50% of York's schools will have access to the latest developments, and this will put York well ahead of the Government's target of 20% of schools having broadband connectivity."

Alan Jones, City of York Council's executive member for leisure and heritage, said: "The new service will also help to improve the opportunities for lifelong learning in the city's libraries and will allow free internet access at all libraries. It will also allow access to digitised images of our historic city available on the internet."

Andrew Tapley, regional director, north east region, Kingston inbusiness, said: "The internet is an excellent resource but it can be a frustrating affair waiting for pages to open and graphics to download. This deal will transform the way the internet can be used at over 50 locations across the city of York and we are delighted that it is our broadband network that will provide the high capacity, high speed services to make this possible.

He continued; "Just as importantly, we are also providing peace of mind for parents and teachers alike, by implementing extensive security measures in an uncompromising effort to ensure student access to unsuitable material is prevented."

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