WA Police awards NEC Australia $39 million for networking, telephony

The Western Australia Police Force has awarded NEC Australia a $39 million contract for networking and telephony work.

The deal covers “transformation” of the Force's wide area network, local area network and IP telephony environments across more than 200 sites.

NEC did not offer more detail on the upgrades, but claimed the new solutions will deliver improved bandwidth to all WA Police stations and campuses, as well as improved communications performance and reliability.

“These new GovNext-ICT services are the foundation of our digital policing capabilities in direct alignment with our vision to continue as an exceptional Police Force for our community,” WA Police Force chief information officer Andrew Cann.

WA Police Force wants the job done within 12 months.

NEC said the contract is part of the WA government’s GovNext-ICT program, an initiative by the state’s Office of Digital Government to provide products and services to assist WA government agencies transition to the cloud.

“The GovNext initiative is all about providing WA government agencies with the underlying ICT infrastructure to better deliver services to the community,” WA government CIO Greg Italiano said.

“The GovNext solution being deployed by NEC for WA Police Force will provide the network and communications services to support the future operational needs of the WA Police Force.”