The Victorian government says that a new group of five telecommunications contracts will save the state $34 million a year.
The new contracts replace the previous Telecommunications Carriage Services contracts with Telstra and Optus, which were established in 2004, and were made under an updated Telecommunications Purchasing and Management Strategy (TPAMS2025)
Along with Telstra and Optus, the state has signed NEC, Vocus, MyNetFone, Mitel, and R-Group up to the new arrangements.
TPAMS2025 has five service towers: Data services (to be delivered by Optus, Telstra and Vocus), voice services (MyNetFone, Optus and Telstra), mobile services (Optus and Telstra), Internet service (Optus, Telstra and Vocus) and a new category – unified communications services (Mitel, NEC, Optus, R-Group and Telstra).
The state government said that the current TCS contracts cost it $160 million per year; under the new arrangement the figure will be slashed to $126 million per year.
“The market for mobile services, data and internet services is dynamic and competitive, and we’re proud to have been able to take advantage of that competition to save Victorians $34 million per year,” special minister of state Gavin Jennings said in a statement.
“Today’s announcement is great news for Victorian taxpayers and great news for the newer, smaller players in the market who can now grow their businesses and create new jobs.”
The new TCS contracts come in to effect on 1 February 2017 and range in duration from three to four years.