Optus and Vocus have scored the first multi-million dollar deals in the Australian Taxation Office’s carve up of its decade-long managed network services megadeal with Optus.
The national revenue agency revealed two network service bundles with the telcos on Monday after a year-long search for service providers to make up its new multi-sourcing arrangement.
It went looking for six new bundles to replace its existing managed network services deal with Optus - which has now ballooned to $1.13 billion over 11 years - last December.
Optus has held the deal since the agency split up its monolithic IT outsourcing agreement with EDS (now DXC) in 2009, beating Dimension Data, Telstra and CSC to the initial contract.
The new bundles, each to be provided by a different service provider, were slated to be “smaller, more modularised and better market aligned” than the Optus arrangement.
Optus will provide mobile and bulk SMS services until the end of August 2023, while Vocus will provide data carriage and internet connection services until the end of September 2023.
The initial three-year deals are worth $14.4 million and $11.4 million respectively, though both deals can be extended for up to a further six years at the discretion of the ATO.
They were procured through the former whole-of-government telecommunications services panel, which has recently been replaced by the telecommunications marketplace.
Both contracts will run alongside Optus’ existing managed network services deal, which was extended until December 2021 in July to support the transition to new service providers.
The ATO is yet to reveal the telcos supporting the remaining bundles, including fixed voice, network management, unified communications and contact centre services.
In a statement, Vocus said it will “provide up to 230 services across 80 ATO sites, on its fully separated secure network”.
It said the services will include “IP WAN, internet and data centre connectivity for all existing and future ATO sites”.
Vocus chief executive Kevin Russell said the contract was “a clear sign of Vocus’ growing recognition as a national provider of secure network infrastructure and solutions”.
He said the contract would provide the “foundational layer of the ATO’s national network infrastructure”, which shows the level of “trust and confidence large government agencies have in our network”.
“We’re very proud of the strong record we have in delivering secure, reliable and high performing services for the federal government,” he added.
Source: https://www.itnews.com.au/news/optus-vocus-score-first-deals-in-ato-telco-carve-up-553636