The Department of Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs (DFHCSIA) is to replace its existing Telstra Managed Telecommunications Services contract.
In Tender documents the DFHCSIA said it was seeking a range of telecommunications equipment and related services to satisfy its voice, data and mobile telecommunications business requirements.
The DFHCSIA, with about 3500 personnel across 45 locations, has approximately 3500 analog handsets and about 1700 Telstra P Phone digital handsets running under Telstra’s CustomNet Spectrum product.
The Department also has 2052 mobile services of which 526 are enabled for data and 366 are BlackBerry devices.
It also uses satellite transmission to provide data and voice services to the remote community sites.
In the tender documents, the DFHCSIA said the tender was part of a four-year ICT upgrade at the department which, over the course of 2009-2010 would see the introduction of a quality if service (QoS) into its data network and the first stage of a number of telecommunication enhancements.
2010-11 will see the introduction of a single voice and data WAN, IP Telephony, video over WAN, the transition to IP Telephony on a new WAN, and a wireless LAN pilot.
2011-2012 will convergent applications such as presence awareness, a single “follow me” number, wireless LAN into production, a wireless IP telephony pilot, and greater handheld device support.
Email Computerworld or follow @computerworldau on Twitter.