NSW Commerce Dept makes connections

The NSW Department of Commerce has awarded several contracts jointly worth more than AU$1 million as it continues a project to upgrade its extensive wide area network (WAN).

With more than 3,000 staff, Commerce is a significant department within the NSW State Government and has around 80 offices located throughout the state. Its technology operations are headed up by Geoff Tye, the general manager of its Information Management and Technology division, although it also houses the NSW State chief information officer Paul Edgecumbe.

Over the past nine months the department has signalled plans to upgrade its WAN from both a hardware and network link perspective. That work has now commenced, with telcos Telstra and Commander having been recently appointed to provide data services and Cisco network routers respectively.

Telstra will supply new Internet Protocol/Multiprotocol Layer Switching-based (IP/MPLS) links in a deal initially expected to be worth close to AU$700,000 over the first few months of this year, while Commander will deliver some AU$350,000 worth of Cisco routers.

The deals were signed late last year, however, Commerce has only this week made them public.

Commerce buys most of its WAN data links from Soul, under the telco's AU$300 million statewide broadband network arrangement with the NSW State Government, however, the Telstra deal will patch some holes in that coverage.

Most of Commerce's sites will be serviced by 2-10Mbps data links, with some requiring higher speeds. The links and Cisco hardware are expected be provisioned over the next few months.

A spokesperson for the department could not immediately comment on the deals.