Sydney Water dials out of telco drama

Sydney Water is looking to simplify its cacophony of telecommunications services through a consolidation tender released today.

Sydney Water is looking to simplify its telecommunications services via a consolidation tender issued today. (Dripping tap image by Cristina Chirtes, CC2.0)

"Sydney Water has 16 telecommunication services under seven separate contracts delivered by five different service providers," tender documents stated.

The utility provider is looking for a single contractor to provide services including fixed-line, mobile, BlackBerry, messaging and paging facilities as well as LAN (local area network) and WAN (wide area network) management, reporting, project management and support facilities.

The current contract with Sydney Water's myriad of different service providers was recently extended to 31 March 2011.

The telco consolidation tender is apart of Sydney Water's corporate strategy to ensure that current and future contracts are better integrated into Sydney Water and can be deemed both efficient and cost effective.

Tenderers must have five years of experience in providing managed data and voice network services in Australia under their belts before applying.

Sydney Water plans to hold an industry briefing session to discuss the tender in early September.

Chris Ford — Sydney Water's new chief information officer — is set to start with the utility provider in mid-September, taking up the post left vacant by former CIO Tim Catley.