Symbol seals £200m Prison Service contract

Mobile computing company Symbol Technologies has signed a £200m deal with EDS to provide technology for the outsourcing company's UK Prison Service contract.

EDS was granted the contract to update the Prison Service's business processes in December last year. Symbol will supply its Spectrum24 product, which provides the infrastructure for wireless LANs.

Michael Wilks, Symbol's director of civil government and healthcare projects, said the project - which involves over 137 prisons across the country - was potentially one of the largest wireless implementations in the world.

Symbol claims its technologies will enable the prison service to integrate buildings currently not covered by its fixed wire network with voice-over-IP telephony.