Optus confirmed as ATO's managed network services provider with four year contract

Stuart Corner
Tuesday, 16 June 2009 10:52

IT Industry - Strategy

Optus has scored what it says is its largest ever federal government contract: a $186.5m four year deal to provide managed network services to the Australian Tax Office.

The ATO announced it was in final negotiations with Optus for the contract in late May,  having chosen Optus in preference to Dimension Data, Telstra and Computer Sciences Corporation with Dimension Data vying with Optus in the final short list.

Optus said the deal was worth $186.5m. The ATO said it currently spent approximately $60.5 million a year on the services which will in future be provided under the Optus contract, according to the ATO.

Optus said it would implement and manage a new application-aware IP network to more than seventy ATO offices using the Optus Evolve network. "Optus Evolve will provide the ATO with increased flexibility for the delivery of IP-based services, including IP telephony, which will be delivered to more than 23,000 ATO employees nationally," Optus said.

Optus will also manage the implementation of an IP contact centre that, it says, "will allow the ATO to better manage resources and skills across its contact centres nationally by merging them into a single 'virtual' contact centre that will use a network queuing platform to distribute calls across the national contact centre network. This centralised 'virtual' contact centre will provide the ATO with the flexibility and scale it requires to respond quickly and efficiently to Government initiatives."

The ATO said the managed network services contract was one of three ICT outsourcing 'bundles'. The other two 'bundles' are end user computing - the RFP for which closed in May and for which contact signing is expected by March 2010 - and centralised computing. The Tax Office expects to release the request for tender for this in July 2009 with a contract expected to be in place by mid-2010.