BSA to support Tellabs edge devices in Telstra network?

Stuart Corner
Thursday, 09 November 2006 15:19

IT Industry - Deals

Broadcast Services Australia has told the ASX that it has secured a three year contract from an American supplier, which it does not name, to maintain that manufacturer's multiservice edge devices in Telstra's points of presence across Australia as part of its next generation network rollout. It says the deal could be worth up to $12 million.

Telstra announced in April  that it had awarded Tellabs a contract to supply multiservice edge devices for its NGN rollout. Tellabs later announced that it had chosen Melbourne as the location for its Australian HQ, saying 'Tellabs products being supplied to Telstra, which include the Tellabs 8800 multiservice router series, will be progressively phased in at Telstra over the next three to four years."

The company said it planned to increase its workforce in Australia but also to outsource some of the work supporting its Telstra contract to local Victorian ICT companies.

To support the contract, BSA has set up a support laboratory in Melbourne and will build another in Sydney. These, it says, could be used to support logistics, staging, fault diagnosis and testing for various specialised equipment manufacturers.

BSA says revenue from the un-named manufacturer is dependent on Telstra's deployment plans for the equipment, but its best estimates are between $6m and $12m over the three years of the agreement.