Telstra Purple wins $50 million South Australian schools deal to rollout massive Cisco SD-WAN

Telstra Purple has won a $50 million deal to supply and manage network and internet services to more than 800 South Australian public schools over six years.

The arrangement will include networking and security solutions provided by Palo Alto Networks, Cisco and school-ICT k-12 software vendor Saasyan to ensure school computers are protected and restrict access to inappropriate content online. 

Cisco technology will also power an SD-WAN linking the 821 school sites involved as of the announcement. 

The network management component of the deal complements and builds on an agreement struck between Telstra and South Australia in late 2018, in which more than 500 public schools were hooked up to a 1Gbps fibre internet connection.

“We are proud to partner with the Department for Education to build not only a high-speed, state-of-the-art network, but also a safe internet experience for South Australian children from preschool to Year 12,” Telstra enterprise and government executive John Ieraci said. 

“Making sure kids are safe when they are online at school is a fundamental part of ensuring the most out of today’s connected education experience. 

South Australian education minister John Gardner said the deployment would deliver much-needed fast and secure access to the internet for students in school and preschool.

“Schools connected to date have been overwhelmingly positive about their experience, using their increased speeds and reliability to support the delivery of innovative lessons and learning to students,” Gardner said. 

“The coronavirus pandemic has highlighted the importance of our students and educators having access to fast, reliable and safe technology to deliver modern learning. 

“Our school students, teachers and preschool educators across the state will now be able to access the applications and information they need, when they need them, with the assurance they are protected by world-class security and content filtering systems.”  

Telstra has also been working with the South Australian education department to roll out Cisco WebEx to support online remote learning.