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Australia Post to use NBN as part of network infrastructure upgrade

Australia's incumbent postal service has awarded Comscentre to help with the five-year project.
Written by Aimee Chanthadavong, Contributor

Australia Post has awarded managed service provider Comscentre with a five-year contract to help the organisation upgrade its telecommunication network at over 4,000 sites, including all post offices, mail and parcel facilities, as well as corporate offices across the country.

Under the contract, Comscentre will roll out Cisco Meraki SD-WAN infrastructure to give Australia Post sites nationally access to greater network connectivity to the NBN. 

According to the incumbent postal service, access to greater bandwidth would mean the delivery of more digital services, faster parcel processing, improved transaction performance of Bank@Post, faster passport applications, while also making Wi-Fi standard in all post offices.

In addition, Comscentre will work with Engage to transform Australia Post's contact centres by consolidating platforms and building capabilities such as machine learning for intelligent customer interaction.

Australia Post CIO John Cox said the telecommunication transformation builds on Australia Post's growth strategy that involves re-writing its retail point of sale, introducing telematics in vehicles and facilities, and partnering with Google for data analytics. 

"This is the largest and most significant transformation of its type and demonstrates how Australia Post is leaning into the future to complete our ambitious agenda," he said.

The announcement comes after Australia Post went to market seeking a partner that could deliver a network that was flexible and robust. 
 
Australia Post added as part of the network transformation, Telstra would continue to look after all communication, collaboration, and mobility needs including video and audio conferencing. 

Last month, Australia Post digital identification service was accredited as being a "trusted identity service provider" by the federal government under its Trusted Digital Identity Framework (TDIF). 

This is despite the government-owned entity being labelled by the Australian National Audit Office (ANAO) as not effectively managing cyber risks

An audit report by the ANAO indicated there were weaknesses in the postal service's implementation of its risk management framework. 

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