Today, we have announced an agreement to renew our contract with the Australian Department of Defence. We’ve been working closely with Defence over a number of years to deliver world-leading technology and critical network services.

Today’s announcement will extend and deepen our collaboration and use our unique sovereign capabilities, decades of experience, and cutting-edge technology to co-design solutions for today and into the future.

Through the five-year contract we will continue to provide the Department with leading-edge technology and telco solutions. The contract is the largest ever signed by Telstra Enterprise, and is an important contribution to the ambition we’ve set to return our Enterprise business to growth.

We’ll work with Defence to deliver significantly increased wireless coverage through a dedicated Wi-Fi 6 rollout program and the introduction of our leading 5G mobile network capability. We will also involve the introduction of full SDWAN and SDN capabilities to provide more flexible, self-healing and predictive network capabilities.

In the last few years, we have undergone a significant transformation of our Enterprise business technology stack as part of our T22 strategy, removing complexity and upgrading legacy systems to offer our customers the best digital solutions. We’ve also rolled out 5G in over 2700 suburbs in over 200 cities and towns across the country, including more than 100 in regional areas, and expanded our 4G footprint to over 2 million square kilometres and 99.4 per cent of Australia’s population. These improvements put us in a great position to support Defence personnel to the highest standard now, and into the future.

We’re committed to working with the Australian Government to ensure a thriving and safe digital economy and society, including ensuring the Department of Defence and Australian Defence Force have access to world-leading technology like virtual reality to bridge physical distance in a virtual space. After successfully delivering an enormous program of work with the Department over recent years we’re excited by the opportunity to take our collaboration even further.

The agreement will also create significant opportunities for local industry, in particular small and medium enterprises and Indigenous companies. This will build on the collaborative approach we already take, working with more than 30 Australian suppliers who together enable us to deliver around $50 million of technology and services per annum for Defence.