NZ Fire Service becomes 100th Spark Service customer

Thursday 29 June 2017

NZ Fire Service becomes 100th Spark Telecommunications as a Service customer

Spark has announced today that New Zealand Fire Service has become the 100th Telecommunications as a Service (TaaS) customer.

This means that Spark has now enabled over 100 New Zealand Government organisations with a variety of Telecommunications as a Service (TaaS) solutions that contribute towards delivering more customer centric public services.

The New Zealand Fire Service use solutions such as personal connectivity, WAN and fixed voice services.

“TaaS provides Fire and Emergency NZ easy access to services whether that be in metro or rural locations. The TaaS construct means we can pick and mix with no lock in on term at a transparent cost. Making our life easier is what it’s all about,” New Zealand Fire Service Director ICT Murray Mitchell says.

TaaS aims to radically change the way ICT services are delivered, managed and used by government agencies. These services enable government to break through traditional agency boundaries and allow them to easily connect with each other.

Spark announced one of the first TaaS deployments with Statistics New Zealand in April 2016, and since then the company has been refining its delivery and deployment arm to stand up a further 150 customers.

“As an early adopter of TaaS services from Spark, we have been able to lower our costs and workloads for communications networking, enabling us to focus on our core business - unleashing the power of data to change New Zealanders lives.

Whilst significantly impacted by the Wellington earthquake in November 2016, we could quickly get our business back up and running by embracing the flexible TaaS services provided by Spark,” Statistics New Zealand Chief Information Officer Chris Buxton says.

Spark Digital Chief Executive Jolie Hodson says Spark’s investment in next generation Government ICT services reflects the company’s commitment to the public sector.

“We’re committed to ensuring we deliver innovation, savings and better services into the future. If we can provide Government agencies with the solutions that they need to effectively collaborate, communicate and connect this will have positive effects on the economy with benefits for all New Zealand citizens.”

Hodson adds, “Spark has worked in the public sector serving hundreds of eligible customers for over 20 years. This experience gives us great insight and understanding of their specific business drivers and user needs.”

TaaS allows agencies and departments to move away from an expensive capital expenditure model, towards a more flexible ‘as a service’ model. We look forward to helping more customers in both the private and public sector adopt this type of framework.”

Spark’s TaaS line up of Government agencies includes Inland Revenue, Ministry of Justice, Department of Corrections, Ministry of Health, New Zealand Transport Agency, MetService, Open Polytechnic and many more.

ENDS

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