2014 sees the completion of the migration of NATO's communication network from a Time Division Multiplexing (TDM) to an Ethernet based system, which will provide the transmission services required for high speed communication between the main NATO nodes representing a total of 60 sites across the 28 NATO member nations.
In 2012, following an International Competitive Bidding procedure based on Best Value evaluation, the contract, in the amount of 30.5 MEURO, was awarded to BT Limited Belgium for a period of 3 years with 2 additional one year extensions as evaluated options. Under this contract a number of major milestones have been achieved: starting with the initial phase of designing the network, going through a Proof of Concept Test and surveying all 60 sites throughout all NATO member nations, resulting toward the end of the 2012 in the delivery of the core nodes and a limited number of distribution and access nodes. The fulfilment of all these milestones was possible due to the commitment and teamwork of both the Agency and BT project teams.
The formal signature of the Provisional System Acceptance documentation on 19 November 2013 marked an important milestone in the history of NATO communications: BT Limited Belgium successfully delivered the majority of the nodes composing the Ethernet based communication Network to the NCI Agency. This event was marked with a small celebration by the reunited project teams, both, from BT Limited Belgium and the NCI Agency.
This project was instrumental in its original inception changing the concept from buying equipment and leasing lines to buying services to be delivered to NATO premises, through a node based Service Level Agreement.
"The IP based network which has been delivered is more flexible and manageable; it allows the convergence of the services and thus simplifies the architecture. Through its hierarchical design the network permits high communication speeds, it can accommodate future developments and will reduce O&M costs," as stated by Adrian Croitoru, the Project Manager.