The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade has asked for hands to be raised to build a $216 million replacement global communications network, as our current diplomatic cables strain under the weight of modern interactions.

The Department says it wants to replace the sluggish Secure Australian Telecommunications and Information Network (SATIN), designed in the late nineteen-nineties, with the new International Communications Network (ICN).

Tender documents say the ICN must connect 140 domestic and overseas posts, including embassies, ministerial offices, relays and outposts; safely transmitting highly classified information. DFAT says it will be responsible for the actual encryption of diplomatic information.

The new system was requested after a recent survey found the SATIN network is under a heavy load from the demands of modern diplomacy, and round-the-clock operations of the Australian Government all over the world.

“The business of DFAT and other agencies operating overseas is faster, more complex and more collaborative than ever before,” the tender documents state.

“Today, information flows across the globe so fast that people everywhere know about events around the world within minutes.

“Expectations of fast turnaround times and a 24/7 work environment are growing, particularly as they relate to essential public-facing services such as consular, passport and visa services,” the government documents said.

DFAT is hoping to get a complete end-to-end solution for its money, the funding for which was allocate din the May 2013 budget.

Official documents say the ICN should remove duplications, multiplied services and redundancies from the existing network, also deleting the “sub-optimal last mile arrangements, disaggregation of business activities at sites, and an inability to share network resources,” which plague our international digital relationships.

Expressions of interest close on March 13, with a shift to the new system expected to take up to eighteen months.