It will enhance the reliability and security of aviation data flows

Following a common procurement action, EUROCONTROL and 41 industry partners, primarily, air navigation service providers (ANSPs), launched a new contract with BT for the provision and management of a secure and highly resilient New Pan-European Network Service (NewPENS). The 10-year contract has an estimated total value of more than €50 million.

The new, ultra-resilient network will connect around 100 locations across 47 countries in the EUROCONTROL area and neighbouring countries. It can be used by all air traffic management (ATM) stakeholders to transfer business-critical data reliably, securely and safely in a cost-efficient way.

It will be built on BT's IP network with mission-critical connections running on a dual-core infrastructure, offering parallel connectivity that is physically and logically separated in order to provide the highest levels of availability and resilience.

NewPENS is the successor to PENS, which was launched in December 2009. It is a major upgrade – in service management, as well as network architecture – and the backbone for cross-border data and voice communications for the Network Manager, ANSPs and other ATM stakeholders.