ANZ Bank inks AU$20m WAN deal

Orange had since late 2003 been providing WAN services to ANZ in areas primarily covering Asia and the Pacific Islands, a spokesperson for Orange told ZDNet Australia today.

The new agreement also covers Europe and North America, in addition to opening the door for ANZ to buy extra value-added services. A statement issued by Orange said the WAN will connect ANZ's operations across 30 countries.

The statement noted ANZ had more than 30,000 staff around the globe (including Australia).

Orange said ANZ would continue its Internet Protocol transformation using the Orange WAN as the basis from which to build integrated data, voice and video applications.

In the statement, ANZ chief technologist of technology infrastructure services, Denis McGee, said Orange had a "proven track record as a committed long-term partner with a flexible and adaptive approach, and a service model consistent with ANZ's business requirements".

"Under the new contract, ANZ will have access to a broader portfolio of the latest products, services and resources," he said. "We are now able to deploy key initiatives such as class of service and application prioritisation globally, and can connect all our staff into a single converged global ICT infrastructure."

"This gives us commercial business advantage, enabling us to expand our market ahead of our competition."

Orange's spokesperson declined to comment on whether ANZ had taken its WAN services to public tender.