Optus bags remaining ATO telco deals for $219m – Strategy – Telco/ISP

Optus has picked up the four remaining telco deals at the Australian Taxation Office to retain the majority of its decade-long megadeal at the national revenue agency.

The telco on Tuesday said it had secured five of the six managed network services bundles, worth a combined $233.3 million, following a year-long procurement.

It will deliver fixed voice services, unified communications, contact centre and network management services until the end of September 2023.

As reported by iTnews late last month, Optus will also provide mobile and bulk SMS services, while Vocus will provide data carriage and internet connection services.

Each contract has an initial three-year term, but can be extended for up to a further six years at the discretion of the ATO.

It means Optus – which held the previous managed network services megadeal for 11 years at a cost of $1.13 billion – will likely remain the ATO’s primary telco until at least 2030.

The largest of the contracts is for the contact centre, which is valued at $84.9 million over three years, followed by network management services at $69.1 million, both held by Optus.

The contact centre handles some 100,000 calls per day, helped by “advanced call routing”, the Alex virtual assistant and the country’s “largest pool of voice biometrics data”.

Optus said these features “deliver enhanced ATO customer experience outcomes and reduce fraudulent activity”.

It will also continue to provide “high quality standards of permanence … that support over 24,000 end users and thousands of networked devices” across 60 locations in Australia.

Optus Business managing director Chris Mitchell said the new contracts will allow the telco to “continue supporting ATO in its ongoing innovation”, as it has done over the past decade.

“Optus feels privileged that the ATO has selected Optus to continue to provide these critical services that underpin the day to day operations of the ATO on which so many people rely,” he said.

He added that the “nature of service bundles awarded to Optus highlights that ATO is looking to Optus to build value on top of the network”.

“These higher value-adding services enable the ATO to speak to their customers, employees and other stakeholders, and to enable secure communication in and between applications and devices,” Mitchell said.

Cyber security is also set to play an increased role in the new contract, with “information privacy, system security and scam prevention” all central themes in the discussion process.

“The ATO and Optus Business will continue to focus on security as a core component to the ongoing design and delivery of services to ensure the continuous protection of the ATO, its data, and its interactions with Australian citizens and businesses,” Mitchell added.