Internet service provider Exetel has signed a deal with Telstra Wholesale worth $40 million over two years, to supply Telstra Ethernet Access to its business customers.
This will make Exetel the third biggest buyer of Telstra Ethernet Access, with the company predicting that the average bandwidth needed by business customers will rise above 100 Mbps.
Exetel chief executive Richard Purdy said: “Having grown four-fold in as many years our corporate business is at an inflexion point, driven by the inexorable growth in demand for reliable bandwidth from our SME customers as they increasingly take up cloud-based services.
“Telstra Wholesale is the ideal partner for Exetel to continue this growth. Our mutual commitment to customer service, their straightforward approach, coupled with Telstra’s unique coverage makes today’s decision a very easy one."
{loadposition sam08}A statement from Exetel said the company had seen average bandwidth per business customer more than triple over the past two years; from 20 Mbps in 2015 to more than 67 Mbps in 2017.
“The world’s SMEs are already enjoying the significant efficiencies and benefits that come with the rapidly growing number of cloud based services. However Australian SMEs still lag the rest of the world in the use of these services," Purdy said.
"We plan to change that by offering fast, reliable and cost effective Ethernet connectivity."
Exetel has about 10,000 Australian corporate clients and about 100,000 residential customers. It resells products from NBN Co, Telstra, Optus, Verizon Business, AAPT & BigAir.
“The competitive environment for SMEs in Australia remains challenging and our clients face a range of challenges including the rise in demand for flexible work alternatives and the growing need for collaboration and productivity," Purdy said. "Central to these objectives is the use of cloud technology which is underpinned by faster connection speeds.
“Our SME clients are increasingly migrating their operations to cloud services, such as Amazon Web Services, Salesforce and Office 365, as well as a multitude of CRM and accounting systems. Using the cloud is much more cost effective for SMEs and provides great reliability and security; it also places greater demand on their connectivity and this deal with Telstra is the solution to that demand.”