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2 December 2003

ACT Government Comms revamp

Bidders for communications revamp announced.

THE ACT government has announced the first successful bidders for its
government-wide communications revamp, which the territory hopes will
carve large chunks off its $15 million annual communications costs.

The government issued a seven-part request for a proposal covering
all of its communications and data service requirements in January.

In the first outcome of the process, the Department of Treasury
announced Logical Networks and Diverse Data Communications had been
selected to build the private fibre network that will provide data to
90 per cent of ACT government staff.

While the network will be data-only in the short term, the ACT could
begin using it for voice-over-IP (VoIP) telephony within the next
three to four years, said Michael Vanderheide, general manager for
the territory's computing and telecommunications agency InTACT.

The new fibre network will save the Government $3.5 million spent
each year on leased line supplied by Telstra, he said. The
government-owned lines will initially be of gigabit capacity "but
ultimately expandable to just about anything we want," Mr Vanderheide
said. It will take 12 months to roll out, but once in place the fibre
networks would be cheap to run, he said.

Meanwhile, Dimension Data has been selected to supply Cisco
networking equipment for the network, while ACT-based ISP TransACT
will supply links to the 30 or so government sites not connected to
the main fibre network.

Mr Vanderheide said it was unlikely that the ACT would follow the
lead of some state governments and open its fibre networks for
private use. Rather the network would likely remain for government
use only. "We are definitely not going to get into the carrier
business," he said.

The ACT Department of Treasury also announced that it would issue
requests for tender for the remaining three part of its its revamp
early next year. TransACT, Telstra, Optus and Damovo have been
shortlisted for the provision of telephony services, while Telstra
and Optus will vie to provide internet and mobile services.

The ACT government expects to announce the results of the remaining
tenders by mid next year.

The final part of the original request for proposal - management of
telecommunications and data services - will not go to tender.
Management had been included in the original request "for the sake of
completeness," Mr Vanderheide said. However, after reviewing
proposals the government decided to keep management in-house. "The
market didn't come back with anything particularly useful," he said.

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