Re Contract

RM PLC
21 November 2000



                           RM Signs £6.2m deal for
 Broadband Managed Services with the South West Grid for Learning

The South West Grid for Learning Consortium (SWGfL) has today signed a
contract with RM plc as the sole supplier of a managed service to schools for
the provision of broadband connectivity and ISP services. The contract is
valued at £6.22 million over three years.  The SWGfL will initially provide
this facility to 165 secondary schools throughout the Consortium with the
framework to allow the member Local Education Authorities to connect Libraries
and Learning Centres with a managed service running to at least 31st August
2003.

This is the first contract to be signed under the broadband initiative of the
Government's Standard Fund, designed to promote the development of the
National Grid for Learning. The solution that RM will supply offers
connectivity to all the secondary schools across the South West region at a
uniform price. Schools will get 2Mbit/s connectivity, filtered access to the
Internet and a variety of wide-area networking services.

By using industry standard components the South West consortium will have a
platform upon which RM can offer further systems integration and managed
services. This coupled with RM's educational pedigree will provide teachers
and pupils in the South West with the infrastructure and high speed connection
needed to take advantage of the educational benefits of the Internet.  RM will
also provide RM SafetyNet Plus, an In-line web-filtering service and cache
that include web filters that are applicable at Consortia, LEA and school
level. It will also provide Web hosting and security services as well as
delivering services to 20,000 desktops.

Richard Girling, chief executive of RM said, 'We are delighted to be working
in partnership with the South West Consortium to deliver this service. Managed
Services are increasingly being used in schools to supply the IT needed to
deliver the teaching and learning needs. RM is ideally positioned to offer
both the systems integration and the managed services demanded by a project
like this. We are also able to offer Internet based content services to this
type of scheme through our content portal service developed by our recently
acquired 3T Productions'.


Notes to editors:

1. The South West Grid for Learning comprises the following Authorities:

Bournemouth Borough Council
Cornwall County Council
Devon County Council
Dorset County Council
Plymouth City Council
Borough of Poole
Somerset County Council
Torbay Borough Council
Wiltshire County Council
 
Affiliated Member
Bristol City Council

2. RM has subcontracted BT to supply of the telecommunications infrastructure
using MetroVPN from BTNet.  MetroVPN allows any site to be connected to the
SWGfL network at speeds from 2Mbits/s to 34Mbits/s. This product is especially
suited to Authority and region wide networks allowing the whole community
access to learning for Life long Learning and support for the People Network.
This will aid the whole region to communicate electronically and meet the
government targets to have all communication with government electronically by
2003.
  
3. £205m has been allocated for the NGfL in the government financial year 2001
of which £37m has been allocated across 8 regional areas for broadband
projects.

For further information call

Fiona McLean 01235 854539