Brisbane Council: Optus kicks Telstra out

Optus has secured a seven-year managed network services and network refresh deal with Brisbane City Council, leaving incumbent supplier Telstra out of the picture.

The council plans to commence a major network refresh using Cisco equipment, which will link around 200 of the council's sites via an IP-based communications network. The deal was signed early last week with the complete transition to Optus' services due by June 2010, according to an Optus spokesperson.

The refresh includes the deployment of a Cisco-based IP telephony system for around 8000 of the council's staff with Optus also contracted to build the council's new IP customer call centre.

The telco won the deal from incumbent provider, Telstra, which was under a three-year extension period with the council from a deal the two had inked in 2002.

The council will also move all its fixed line, mobile and data services to Optus, which will also manage the council's 3500 mobile phones.

"While the Queensland State Government has been a major customer and partner of Optus for some time, this agreement with Brisbane City Council represents a significant win for us in the Queensland local government sector," John Simon, managing director, Optus Enterprise and Business Group said in a statement.

The win for Optus follows two recent managed network services contracts with Australian and New Zealand Banking Group and the Australian Taxation Office. Telstra, however, also recently won a massive deal with Commonwealth Bank of Australia.

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Talkback 14 comments

    Any network redundancy?? Anonymous -- 20/07/09

    Must have short memories!!

    I thought Brisbane coucil would have looked at what happened with the HUGE outages the below average Singtel/Optus network inflicted on happless Queenslanders late lat year.

    The fact there was no redundancy built into their netowrks because they build cheap!!

    get your facts right Anonymous -- 20/07/09 (in reply to #320158114)

    A blatant lie but there you go. There were two levels of redundancy and by a freak twist of fate both failed at the same time. You probably work for Telstra and are embittered by the fact that Brisbane council didn't want to pay over-inflated prices to be treated like monkies by Telstra. The fact that Telstra has been in there for 7 years and they still were dropped means that Brisbane Council must be pretty upset about something.... and by the way I don't work for Optus

    ..........get your facts right Anonymous -- 21/07/09 (in reply to #320158164)

    ".... and by the way I don't work for Optus".

    By a freak twist of fate, they probably wouldn't want you anyway.

    @any network redundancy Anonymous -- 20/07/09 (in reply to #320158114)

    no not short memories, its known as "*weighting*

    the fact that there were HUGE, as you call them, outages from optus and the council still chose optus over telstra regardless, should tell even a mindless fanboi something????

    Poor Brisbane Anonymous -- 21/07/09 (in reply to #320158294)

    Don't worry about him (@Any network redundancy??) Just a hopeless Optus fanboy who has no idea what he's talking about. I'm sure The Brisbane Council will come to regret the decision they have made

    Where does this leave Avaya? Anonymous -- 20/07/09

    So is Cisco replacing much of the Avaya Communications BCC have in place?

    There goes our money and jobs off-shore again! Anonymous -- 21/07/09

    h boy! More of our hard earned money going off-shore to an overseas owned enterprise...

    In addition, Optus Managed Services contact centre is overseas too; this also was recently moved out of Australia.

    Think of all our hard earned taxes from Federal and State Government agencies that are leaving the country due to them been managed by Optus Managed Services - an overseas owned enterprise, and managed/operated by an overseas contact centre...

    How many more jobs and money can we lose overseas?

    Conversely, how many jobs would we create in Australia for us and our children, if these huge Government contracts were managed and WHOLLY operated in Australia by AUSTRALIAN OWNED enterprises?

    Think about it, politicians! It’s your children jobs too!

    Offshore jobs??? ferris -- 21/07/09 (in reply to #320159296)

    So you are saying that Telstra is 100% committed to Australian jobs and our kids and does no offshoring itself????????

    Offshore jobs????? Anonymous -- 21/07/09 (in reply to #320159399)

    Spot the Optus fanboi!

    Having said that, I am no fan of the telco myself. But I do want my kids to have jobs...

    Our tax dollars we pay to Federal, State or local level, should stay in the country.

    offshore spending of our tax dollars???? Anonymous -- 21/07/09 (in reply to #320159479)

    spot the shareholder fanboi!

    fine, don't buy toyota, bmw, mazda, nike, adidas, sony, samsung, lg, levi, gucci, blah, blah ..................but it's different with telstra isn't it...oh my shares!

    Offshore Jobs????? Anonymous -- 21/07/09 (in reply to #320159498)

    Telstra shareholder. No!
    Or, even a telco shareholder. No!
    But, spot the unpatriotic un-Australian fanboi...

    Just a concerned citizen wanting better use of Federal, State and Local Governments resources, that is all.

    Dont want our tax we pay to go off-shore. As much as possible, keep them here. Which translates into Australian jobs.

    Or is this too difficult to ask for?

    Offshore Jobs????? Anonymous -- 22/07/09 (in reply to #320159663)

    Nasty!

    Mmmm... spot the Optus employee!

    In fact, spot the Optus Salesperson who was involved in securing this deal!

    Spot the person who was part of the sell out of Australia to an offshore enterprise.

    Come on all Heads of Federal, State and local Government, their staff and all Government employees: As much as possible, please stop the bleeding of all Federal, State and local Government tax revenue going overseas! Please protect our country, our jobs and our children from these people...

    So no faith in NBN then ??? Anonymous -- 21/07/09

    So locked in for 7yrs and the govenment going to roll out a NBN ?

    Optus / Singtel are a juniper house but then again so we're AAPT . I wonder if Cisco is doing a like for like dropping in CRS-1's for nothing just for the maintance agreement.

    Regardless 7 yrs is way to long for any platform.

    Cheers

    phones Anonymous -- 22/07/09 (in reply to #320159374)

    well I got to say that anything will be better than telstra. Currently working with BCC, I am hopefuly that optus will provide a better range and at a more competitive price. Just ask anyone working in there about the cost of some of those phones!!!

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