Macquarie Telecom gets $2 million top-up for Federal Court contract

The Federal Court has renewed a contract with Macquarie Telecom for the supply of its secure internet gateway.

The $2 million contract will extend MacTel's provision of internet access to the courts until 30 June 2021.

As a federal government department, the Federal Court of Australia is mandated to procure secure gateways that are provided only by suppliers certified by the Australian Signals Directorate (ASD).

Macquarie Telecom achieved protected-level accreditation for its government cloud services in September 2017, one of just five cloud providers. The secure internet gateway service it offers resides in the MacTel's Canberra data centre with a redundant facility in Sydney.

"As an Australian business providing services only in Australia, Macquarie Government’s internet gateway is specifically built to meet the needs of government. A team of over 100 government security cleared, local engineers provide a level of support unmatched by industry – as measured by industry-leading Net Promoter Score (NPS)," A Macquarie Government spokesperson told CRN.

"A benefit of consolidation is that all agencies (including small agencies) can meet a baseline security level and get access to technology upgrades. A program of continuous investment means that our customer agencies are able to access new and more sophisticated security technology to respond to the evolving threat landscape."

A Federal Court Australia spokesperson said the renewal was procured through a lead agency under the Commonweath's secure internet gateway arrangements. 

"Under the Commonwealth’s SIG arrangements there are a number of large “lead” agencies that have “sub” agencies that fall under that lead agencies’ Head Agreement with a certified vendor. The new contract was from the lead agency and FCA then was subsequently renewed under that arrangement," the spokesperson said.

"Any other commentary much appreciated. This type of [secure internet gateway] arrangement provides costs savings to the Commonwealth in that it reduces the overall number of contracts, by only having the larger lead agencies contracts and from there the “sub” agencies fall under that contract.

"It effectively means you don’t have individual contracts for every Commonwealth agency."