It’s the biggest federal contract yet won by Optus. Under the deal it will provide services including data and voice carriage, telephony, wide and local area networks, video conferencing and call centre infrastructure and services. It will also set up and manage a new IP network linking more than 70 ATO offices and using Optus’s Evolve network system. This will see services like IP telephony being delivered to 23,000 ATO employees. The Tax Office deal closely follows another big win over Telstra by Optus: a $500 million global managed network services contract with the ANZ Bank (CDN, May 5). That deal will see Optus and parent SingTel provide services to 34,000 ANZ staff in 30 countries across Asia and the Pacific as well as Australia. At the time Optus Business MD John Simon gloated: “Banks have given Optus business in the past, and other telcos business, but they’ve never moved all their business away from Telstra.” Yesterday he was even happier, if more formal. “The awarding of this contract confirms confidence in our ability to deliver value, innovation and superior service to major government agencies as well as our vast experience in the deployment of IP technologies,” he said. |
