Under the new agreement, Macquarie will extend cloud and SD-WAN services across 35 of Kelsian Group’s Australian public transport division locations

Australian operator Macquarie Telecom has kicked off a multi-million-dollar cloud services project with land and marine, tourism and public transport service provider Kelsian Group — formerly SeaLink. The deal, an expansion to the existing April 2020 contract between Macquarie Telecom and the Kelsian Group-owned Transit Systems, involves a combination of Optus’ network, Azure cloud and VMware SD-WAN.

Kelsian Group operates transport fleets throughout Australia, the U.K. and Singapore, and was formed following a A$635 million acquisition of Transit Systems, which was already receiving SD-WAN, mobile and cloud services from Macquarie Telecom.

“Macquarie Telecom really had to justify its position in the new Kelsian Group,” stated Kelsian Group CIO Chris Benson, adding that the operator’s efficiency and customer service ultimately shone through.

“In a transformative merger like we had with Kelsian Group and Transit Systems, there’s a lot of going back to the drawing board to ensure supply partners are equipped to service the new structure,” said Benson.

Under the new agreement, SD-WAN services will be extended across 35 of Kelsian Group’s Australian public transport division locations and additional cloud services, including Azure cloud, will be provided.

Kelsian Group’s public transport mobile services are now under Macquarie’s Optus-backed 5G network. Last year, Macquarie signed a $34 million exclusive multi-year agreement with Optus to deploy 5G and other mobile services to enterprise customers, ending its wholesale contract with Telstra.

Macquarie Telecom first deployed SD-WAN services with intelligent dynamic packet routing in Australia in 2017, with support from VeloCloud.