ASX-listed Kelsian Group takes up cloud, mobile services

ASX-listed Kelsian Group, the umbrella company of transit brands like SeaLink and Captain Cook Cruises, has signed a multi-year, multi-million-dollar contract for cloud, SD-WAN and mobile telephony services.

Image credit: Kelsian Group

The group, which has operations in Australia, the UK and Singapore, extends an existing April 2020 contract between Macquarie Telecom and the Kelsian Group-owned Transit Systems, which covered only SD-WAN and AI-based analytics for its network and data environment. 

Macquarie Telecom becomes Kelsian Group’s primary mobile services provider under the new contract. 

Kelsian Group CIO Chris Benson said that Macquarie Telecom "really had to justify its position in the new Kelsian Group".

The new agreement provides additional cloud services, including using Azure to help manage Australian workloads and migrate Kelsian Group’s Singapore-based production environment. 

Macquarie Telecom secured Azure Expert MSP status last year. 

Kelsian Group said in the statement that SD-WAN services would be extended across 35 of Kelsian Group’s Australian public transport division locations to improve network visibility, reliability, and control. 

The company’s public transport mobile services are now under Macquarie’s Optus-backed 5G network.

Macquarie Telecom left Telstra for mobile connectivity and entered a $34 million exclusive agreement with Optus last year. 

Bus trial

Macquarie Telecom is also working with specialist mobile partner Mobile Mentor on a proof-of-concept trial rolling out 200 tablets to Kelsian Group buses. 

The tablets track GPS position and communicates back to the operations centre, with the real-time data used to keep buses on schedule and improve service reliability.