Macquarie Telecom has secured a multi-year deal with public transportation services company Kelsian Group to deploy mobile, cloud and SD-WAN services.
The “multi-million-dollar” contract involves Optus mobile, Azure cloud services and VMware SD-WAN, as part of Kelsian’s plan to simplify its cloud and telecoms network.
Formerly known as SeaLink Travel Group, ASX-listed Kelsian Group is a land and marine, tourism, and public transport service provider across Australia, the United Kingdom and Singapore. It was formed in 2019 following SeaLink’s $635 million acquisition of Transit Systems.
The contract is a continuation of MacTel’s previous SD-WAN, mobile and cloud services deal with Transit Systems, expanding to cover Kelsian and replacing some existing contracts.
Kelsian chief information officer Chris Benson said MacTel’s service and reliability “stood out as key reasons” to trust the company and expand its previous agreement with Transit Systems.
“In a transformative merger like we had with Kelsian Group and Transit Systems, there’s a lot of going back to the drawing board to ensure supply partners are equipped to service the new structure,” Benson said.
“Macquarie Telecom really had to justify its position in the new Kelsian Group and ultimately Macquarie’s efficiency and customer service made all the difference.”
The Azure deployment is expected to manage Australian workloads, and also includes the migration of a Singapore-based production environment and critical applications that manage Kelsian’s core operations for its staff and bus networks.
SD-WAN services are also being expanded across some 35 locations of Kelsian’s Australian Public Transport Division, maximising network visibility, reliability and control. Kelsian’s public transport mobile services are also under MacTel’s Optus-backed 5G network.
“Communications reliability is essential from a safety and efficiency perspective across our teams,” Benson said.
“Admittedly, we were sceptical about Optus being able to provide the coverage we needed. Macquarie expertly guided us – using the Optus roadmap, giving us the confidence and flexibility to ensure it would meet our needs – while significantly reducing costs.”
MacTel said it is also working with specialist mobile partner Mobile Mentor on a proof-of-concept trial to roll out 200 tablets to Kelsian Group buses, tracking GPS position and other data to ensure buses are on schedule and provide improved reliability.ADVERTISING
MacTel group executive Luke Clifton said, “Once again, our commitment to homegrown, industry-leading customer service has paved the way for an even stronger partnership with a thriving Australian company.”
“We look forward to seeing Kelsian Group continue to go from strength to strength and we’ll continue to develop new cloud and network services to help it achieve that.”Got a news tip for our journalists? Share it with us anonymously here.