Cisco tapped by Australia NBN to be part of its data network

NBN Co., the Australian service provider tasked with building Australia's National Broadband Network, on Tuesday selected Cisco Systems (Nasdaq: CSCO) to provide MPLS switching on routers and firewalls for its national connectivity network (NCN).

Cisco will start work on the five-year, AUD 38 million (USD 39 million) project immediately, providing NBN with switching on Cisco-provided routers and firewalls.

In addition to the routing equipment, Cisco said that its intelligent network technology will be deployed in NBN Co's depot, aggregation nodes and other key locations and will support the Operations Support System (OSS) and Business Support System (BSS) platforms, signalling and timing.

Tony Cross, NBN Co's executive general manager of Network Architecture and Technology, said the Cisco gear will enable it to get a common view of how its wireline and wireless equipment is performing and more effectively troubleshoot issues as they arise.

"This equipment will enable communication between NBN Co's centralized operational staff and IT systems with the fibre, fixed wireless and satellite equipment situated at various locations across Australia," he said. "The remote control of this equipment, via the NCN, will allow new services to be activated and faults to be diagnosed and repaired quickly and efficiently across Australia."

Securing this win is big for Cisco as it further cements the San Jose, Calif.-based vendor's place in helping to build out the NBN.

Previously, a Cisco-led consortium that included partners EMC and VMware won a contract in 2010 to provide data center services to NBN Co. With that contract, the consortium was tasked with building a platform that would enable the service provider to conduct essential functions such as network management, inventory management, customer care, billing, service provisioning and fulfillment systems, in addition to providing a web portal to support customer self-service and the corporate website.

For more:
- see the release

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