update The Rail Corporation of New South Wales has brought in external consulting company Gibson Quai - AAS to assist in the development of its enterprise-wide telecommunications strategy through to 2015.
RailCorp's role as the operator of the state's rail network sees it maintaining a number of current and legacy telecommunications platforms -- for example site infrastructure (such as towers), copper and fibre-optic cable networks, data and voice equipment, carrier links, and a variety of network management systems.
The planned new strategy is expected to address among other things the effective use of those current assets and the direction of future purchases, in addition to sourcing strategies, and potential income streams for RailCorp. Another item certain to be on the agenda is RailCorp's planned new AU$200 million digital train radio system to be built using radio spectrum bought from defunct telco One.Tel last year.
RailCorp acknowledged Gibson Quai's role in an e-mailed statement, however, the rail operator declined to comment further. "The project is still underway and thus it would be inappropriate for us to second guess the findings and recommendations," RailCorp said.
The consultant's involvement was recently disclosed by NSW's contracts reporting system as an AU$260,480, eight-month deal. Gibson Quai beat rivals Housley Consulting and Consultel IT&T to the work.
RailCorp is not the only rail operator across the nation looking to redevelop and integrate its communications networks. For example, earlier this month the Australian Rail Track Corporation, which manages over 10,000km of rail track in Victoria, NSW and South and Western Australia, announced an AU$85 million deal with Telstra to use the telco's Next G mobile network.
At the time, Telstra's group managing director of its Enterprise and Government division, David Thodey, said a number of state railways were also looking at their options for various communications systems replacements.
Meanwhile, the NSW contracts reporting system also disclosed an AU$1.9 million, two-year contract that RailCorp has recently signed with EMC for an enterprise content management platform.
