Telus Nets $200M Canadian Government Deal

Telus Corp., a Canadian telecommunications company, has won a contract worth up to $200 million to provide a managed data network to the Canadian government, the company said May 11.

Telus of Barnaby, British Columbia, will provide the design, engineering, implementation, operation and maintenance of network services that will link 650 government locations through a high-speed data network. It will include an advanced network and application monitoring system.

The four-year contract, which contains an option to extend for four additional years, is expected to create up to 200 jobs across Canada, said Telus.

The contract award will help accelerate the company's national data and Internet protocol strategy, said Darren Entwistle, Telus' president and chief executive.

Telus is ranked as the second largest telecommunications company in Canada, after BCE Inc. of Montreal, according to Hoover's Online of Austin, Texas. Telus is the incumbent local-exchange carrier in the western provinces of British Columbia and Alberta and also provides data, IP and voice and wireless service to central and eastern Canada.

Telus was formed in 1999 by the merger of BC Telecom and Telus. Verizon Communications Inc. of New York owns 27 percent of the company.

Telus has more than 21,000 employees and had revenue of $6.4 billion in fiscal 2000.