Zayo Bandwidth, a provider of bandwidth infrastructure solutions for carrier, enterprise and government customers, will deploy TDM and Ethernet services to an additional 300 wireless tower sites in the Philadelphia and Lehigh Valley areas of Pennsylvania in support of the current mobile platform and the upcoming transition to 4th generation technologies.

The deployment is aimed at enabling the delivery of high-speed, LTE wireless network services, and also expanding existing network capacity and bandwidth to accommodate new mobile services and applications, the company said.

The Commission On Elections (COMELEC) of the Philippines has signed a contract for the automation of the 2010 National Elections with Smartmatic.

Smartmatic, a supplier of electoral solutions and services, won the bid to carry out the 2010 Election project — to provide voting machines, consolidation platforms and roll-out services — in the Philippines.

As the nation gears up for an automated election, the contract (worth approximately US $150m) will see Smartmatic deploy 82,200 SAES1800 voting machines across a sizable proportion of the 7,107 thousand islands comprising the territory of the Philippines, and transmit all results electronically to over 1,700 canvassing and consolidation centres.

In addition, it will train and place 45,000 support technicians, and manage all logistics and technical contingencies during the project, with the target of enabling electronic voting to some 50m voters, including those living in remote locations and difficult terrains, the company said.

The Ministry of Public Administration (MPA) of Spain has awarded BT Spain a contract extension worth up to E44.5m over its lifetime, to provide networked IT and telephony services.

MPA – which co-ordinates and offers administrative support to the Spanish government at a central, regional and local level across 400 offices – awarded BT Global Services the contract after a competitive tender.

The four-year contract, which will see BT provide fixed line, internet and data services to the Spanish government is expected to be worth E28.3m, with a provision to extend that by another two years for the value of E16.19m.

BT will provide around-the-clock monitoring and maintenance for all the data and fixed line telephony voice traffic that will travel between the MPA’s 300 offices over its 11,000 kilometre Spanish Internet Protocol network.

The contract builds on two previous contracts BT had with MPA over the last six years.

Fineos, a provider of enterprise software solutions for insurance, bancassurance, and government, has been selected as the claims management solution for life and income protection (disability) claims at SalusAnsvar, one of Sweden’s life assurance companies.

Fineos Claims will replace the existing solution and the project will commence immediately.

The configuration capabilities of Fineos Claims are expected to allow SalusAnsvar IT and business staff to amend processes within their own areas of activity. The company believes this approach will enable it to adapt to changes in the business without reliance on external parties or specialist technical knowledge.

Globant, the Latin American player in software product development, R&D, and IT maintenance outsourcing, is opening offices in Bogota, Colombia.

With the intention of broadening its presence in the country and strengthening its growth in the region, Globant is inaugurating offices for working with clients such as Microsoft, the Ministry of Defense – with projects in conjunction with Microsoft, CAFAM and other companies.

Telekom Malaysia (TM) and Verizon Business are jointly developing a new Malaysian Internet protocol (IP) node to support the delivery of advanced data services to Malaysian-headquartered companies, as well as multinational companies with operations in Malaysia and throughout the region.

The two companies are collaborating to develop a new internet node in Cyberjaya, which will be jointly operated by TM and Verizon Business. The node is due to go live in the second quarter of 2009.

The new internet node is intended to support the Malaysian agenda of turning the country into a regional hub for internet peering and networking.

The Texas Department of Information Resources (DIR) and Data Projections have signed a new agreement aimed at reducing the cost of audio and video-conferencing products for state and local government entities across Texas.

The contract allows government and education entities to order audio/visual technology products and services directly from Data Projections under DIR, instead of conducting a separate, open-bid process.

The list of Data Projections DIR contracted services and products now includes audio, Web and video-conferencing.

The DIR programme provides state agencies, cities, counties, public school districts and universities with several benefits that include allowing customers to take advantage of the purchasing power of the state of Texas with pre-negotiated project pricing and streamlined order processing.

Texas government and public education customers can place orders directly with Data Projections by referencing the DIR contract number DIR-SDD-844 to receive the discounted price, Data Projections informed.

LGS, a subsidiary of Alcatel-Lucent dedicated to serving the US government community, has become a subcontractor to STG, on a $47m contract to provide the United States Army Reserve access to the Department of Defense (DoD) classified information network.

Initially, LGS will work on a $12m task order to engineer, furnish, install and test the installation of Secret Internet Protocol Router Network (SIPRNET) cafes’ for 161 US Army Reserve (USAR) Centrws across the United Stated and Puerto Rico.

SIPRNET is reportedly DoD’s largest network for the exchange of classified information and messages. It interfaces with the Global Command and Control System, the Defense Messaging System and numerous other classified warfighting and planning applications.

This is understood to be the first phase of a potential $47m contract awarded to STG, a government contractor that provides enterprise and IT infrastructure, security, applied engineering, and scientific and professional services.