Case Study: Devon & Cornwall Police achieves 70% WAN traffic reduction and avoids costly network upgrades with Riverbed Steelhead

Police service avoids expensive network upgrade and protects IT investment utilizing Riverbed

Devon & Cornwall Police, a 5,000‑person force covering a largely rural 180‑mile area, faced costly and hard‑to‑manage WAN challenges across nearly 200 sites. Many smaller or temporary sites relied on low‑bandwidth ADSL (often 1–5 Mbps), limiting the number of devices that could access critical applications and making traditional bandwidth upgrades expensive and impractical.

After a successful proof of concept, the force deployed 37 Riverbed Steelhead appliances to optimize WAN traffic. The solution cut WAN traffic by about 70% and reduced log‑on times by roughly 40%, allowed twice as many desktops to run on ADSL, avoided large upgrade costs (up to six times higher in some cases), improved staff efficiency and protected IT investment while offering flexibility to move appliances between sites.

Devon & Cornwall Police

James Goodwin

Network Manager