Brussels, 23 May 2024 – In recent months, Belnet has completed the migration of the Wide Area Networks (WAN) of a series of federal public services. With this, Belnet has taken the first major steps in the phased operation that centralises the WAN connectivity of some 20 federal organisations with more than 1,400 physical locations. In addition to many operational and administrative benefits for the public services concerned, the project also offers savings for the federal government amounting to 1.2 million euros per year.
As part of a spending review commissioned by FPS BOSA (Policy & Support), Belnet, the IT partner for research, education and public services, concluded in 2022 that significant savings could be made by centralising the management of WAN services of various federal public services. A Wide Area Network is a network that connects an organisation's various decentralised locations to each other and to the Internet. Following the federal council of ministers' decision in October 2022 to have this project implemented by Belnet, and after a tender process, Belnet entered into a five-year framework agreement with Telenet Business last year. That part of Telenet, which specialises in business telecom solutions, facilitates WAN connectivity for federal public services on behalf of Belnet.
Unburdening and saving
By centralising WAN connectivity at Belnet, the public services concerned no longer need to issue separate public contracts. This greatly reduces the administrative burden of procurement and contract management. With Belnet as administrator and central point of contact, the public services are also completely unburdened operationally.
Moreover, this means huge savings for the federal government. Dirk Haex, Managing Director at Belnet, said: 'The first migrations in the series not only confirm our projections of 10 percent savings, but indicate that we may even exceed them. Specifically, this means that thanks to this project, once all public services concerned have been migrated, the government will save at least 1.2 million euros per year. As a trusted partner of the federal public services, our job is to provide them with a stable, secure and robust network with reliable data connections, at the lowest possible cost to the taxpayer. I am very proud that we are succeeding in this with a complex process that is going very smoothly, thanks in part to the good cooperation with our external partners.'
'Centralising the management of these WAN networks is a success story. The savings for the federal government are significant and will increase as the project progresses. It demonstrates that savings and economies of scale are possible, and this is thanks to Belnet's well-coordinated approach across the various federal services. Belnet not only unburdens other government services, but also strengthens its position as a reliable IT partner for all federal services.'
Thomas Dermine, State Secretary in charge of Science Policy
Expected completion in 2026
In practice, today, the WAN network of the FPS Economy has been fully migrated and that of the FPS Employment, Labour and Social Dialogue (ELSD) has been largely migrated, accounting for 10% of the entire project. Before summer, the entire networks of the FPSs Social Security, Mobility, Public Health and the FASFC will be added. 'In the coming years, numerous large public services with many decentralised sites, such as Finance and Justice, will follow', said Dirk Haex. 'We expect that the whole operation will be completed in 2026, with possibly a few loose ends until 2028.'