Specials

News from 2008

January 2008

January 1st 2008 A Very Eventful 12 Months

The last 12 months have been very eventful with many challenges/difficulties overcome and many opportunities taken to improve every aspect of the way Exetel operates. A succinct summary of the major events over the past 12 months is set out below:

Engineering

  1. We added a Queensland PoP.
  2. We added a Victorian PoP.
  3. We began the build out of a second Sydney PoP.
  4. We added a second GigE for Telstra ADSL1 user in NSW.
  5. We pioneered the use of P2P filtering with Allot.
  6. We pioneered the use of P2P caching with PeerApp.
  7. We doubled our customer connectivity bandwidth.
  8. We doubled the number of routers we deployed.

Services

  1. We provided 'equipmentless VoIP' for those users who didn't want to buy VoIP equipment.
  2. We added spam/virus filtering using the IronPort solution.
  3. We added SMS via email.
  4. We added FAX via email.
  5. We began to offer calling card services via retail outlets in 5 capital cities.
  6. We increased the 'free time period' to 12 hours each day.
  7. We increased the 'free time allowance' to 48 GB each month.
  8. We added 'naked' ADSL2 with 100 free VoIP calls to begin the move away from dependence on Telstra.

Financial

  1. We increased our revenue for each of the twelve months continuing the record of doing that for 46 consecutive months
  2. We saw the first signs of Exetel making better than 'break even' monthly profits
  3. Exetel now makes a profit on recurrent revenue without the need of a contribution from 'once only' sales contributions
  4. Our revenue per employee increased by 16%
  5. Our customers to employee ratio increased by 15%
  6. We continued to fund all new asset and other purchases from retained profits
  7. Exetel continues to have no debt and no leasing obligations other than office premises in North Sydney
  8. All growth was achieved with no expenditure on advertising or marketing

Changes occurred in every month and the rate of change over the past 12 months is planned to slightly increase in 2008.

January 18th 2008 Exetel Fully Implements Caching To Deliver Faster P2P Downloads

Exetel has completed a three month implementation program designed to speed the delivery of file transfers and has now completed the first phase of this program by providing a P2P caching service that utilizes 8 terabytes of disk caching to deliver P2P data files at speeds pf up to 400% faster than was possible using an optimized ‘direct’ service.

Once the final ‘tweaks’ are made to this new service it’s expected to add around an additional 400 mbps of ‘virtual’ bandwidth that is available to Exetel customers who use P2P services to obtain data from the internet. Exetel will then proceed to Phase 2 of this program by adding caching for streaming video from popular services such as You Tube and MySpace.

February 2008

February 1st 2008 Exetel Records 48th Successive Record Monthly Revenue

Exetel issued its first recurrent revenue customer invoices on March 1st 2004 for a total of a little less than $10,000. Each successive month since then the amount of the monthly recurrent bill runs have increased. On February 1st 2008 the monthly recurrent bill run was a little over $2,800,000 representing a 28,000% increase in simple mathematical terms. While revenue growth is not a particularly significant measure of commercial success, particularly in expanding marketplaces (such as the ones in which Exetel operates) it is still a notable achievement for a start up company.

Another aspect of the level of success and efficiencies that Exetel has achieved over the past four years since it began operations is that the monthly revenue, which now exceeds $3,000,000 each month is derived, managed and supported by a total personnel of only 30 people making Exetel, almost certainly, the most efficient communications company In Australia.

February 15th 2008 Exetel Activates Akamai Server Cluster

Exetel has been involved in an 18 month program to increase speeds achieved by its ADSL and wireless broadband customers by ‘moving’ the sources of files they download ‘closer’ to the end user.

One of the best ways of improving end user’s file download speeds is to cache the files they need at Exetel rather than needing to go to the USA or even somewhere else in Australia to source the downloads. The best known commercial provider of such services is Akamai: http://www.akamai.com/

who are the ‘preferred’ provider for many major software downloads such as those from Microsoft, Sun Micro Systems and Adobe (as well as many others).

Akamai has now installed a server cluster in the Exetel PoP which will allow Exetel broadband residential and business customers to achieve the maximum speeds their service can run at when downloading large files for new operating system or other software package releases, updates and patches.

March 2008

March 19th 2008 Exetel Signs Lease For Offices In Colombo, Sri Lanka

Exetel is in the process of setting up a company in Sri Lanka which is planned to begin operations in July 2008. Exetel started to employ customer support engineers in Colombo in February 2006 and there are currently four Colombo based Exetel support engineers who work from their homes supporting Exetel customers in Australia using DSL connections to Exetel’s Sydney data bases and being directly connected to Exetel’s Sydney office PABX.

Once the office is established Exetel will provide increased levels of customer support and will increase customer support hours from the current business days 8.30 am to 5.30 pm to seven days a week with week day support (including public holidays) lengthening to 8.00 am to 11.00 pm. Exetel will also move some of its back end accounting processes to Colombo once the support functions are fully operational.

Exetel will also take advantage of the excellent level of programming skills developed in Sri Lankan universities to more rapidly develop both its own in house systems and also a management personnel and operational control suite it plans to take to market in early 2009.

March 24th 2008 Exetel Signs Leases For PoPs In Perth And Adelaide

Exetel plans to extend it’s direct coverage of its ADSL1 customer base by activating its own PoPs in WA and SA and has signed contracts with NexGen for co-location and back haul connectivity to its already established PoPs in Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland. Prior to activating the new PoPs Exetel used Optus to provide connectivity in those States (as it previously did in Victoria and Queensland).

The new PoPs will have local connection to peering centres in those cities as well as international and national connection via Exetel’s two Sydney PoPs. Once these two PoPs are fully operational Exetel will establish a PoP in Hobart and the ACT on the same basis – to provide ADSL1 services to current and prospective customers and to reduce the current costs of providing both residential and business services in those areas.

April 2008

April 9th 2008 10,000 User Help Forum Members

Exetel set up a User help Forum on 3rd January 2004 with the objective of providing technical and other assistance to new Exetel customers as well as to help ‘older’ Exetel customers with problems they encountered in the use of their Exetel services. The advice provided was initially by Exetel personnel (all of whom still provide advice and comment today) but, as with all forums, other forum users quickly became a key part of providing in depth knowledge on the myriad of issues that an ADSL user faces in their daily use of a broadband service.

Over time Exetel’s customers have been well served by many, many experienced users who make time to provide helpful suggestions and advice to people experiencing problems with every conceivable aspect of an internet connection and the wide range of hardware used by Exetel customers. We have been even more fortunate in having customers who, on a volunteer basis, give up some of their ‘spare’ time to administer the operation of the forum and to, themselves, provide the benefit of their knowledge and experience to less experienced users.

Today the number of ‘real’ members reached 10,000 – Exetel runs a comprehensive ‘editing’ program that removes spam bots and other unwanted ‘members’ that attempt to register. Since its creation there have been over 250,000 different threads with over 4,000,000 separate posts made and the Exetel User Forum has been a key resource for Exetel users to obtain advice and guidance to make using their Exetel ADSL and other services more productive.

April 26th 2008 Exetel Adds “Shaping” Options To All Current Broadband Plans

Exetel has always offered broadband plans with large data allowances in both peak and off peak periods. If a customer exceeded either time period’s allowance in any month Exetel charged Australia’s lowest excess download charge of $3.00 per gigabyte for excess downloads.

From May 1st 2008 any Exetel customer on any broadband plan can select the option, for either period, to either continue at the full plan speed if they exceed either the peak or off peak allowance of their plan or to have their line speed in the period slowed to 64 kbps. The customer has the ability to ‘select and forget’ their preferred scenario or they can change the method in as many months as they choose to do so.

This new option creates the most flexible plans available from any ISP in Australia while maintaining the highest down load allowances and the lowest prices.

May 2008

May 13th 2008 Exetel Extends Telephone Support Hours

Since it began operations in January 2004, Exetel has provided telephone support from 8.30 am to 5.30 pm on weekdays excluding public holidays. From June 1st 2008 Exetel will extend the telephone support hours to 9.30 pm each day.

This additional support will be provided as the first benefit to Exetel’s Australia customers of Exetel’s newly established operations in Colombo, Sri Lanka.

Over the next six months, as additional personnel are hired and trained, Exetel Communications Pvt Ltd in Colombo will continue to extend telephone support hours for Exetel’s Australian customers to provide telephone support on Australian public holidays and on week ends.

May 22nd 2008 Exetel Completes Australia Wide Network

Exetel signed contracts today to complete its network coverage of Australia by installing PoPs in Hobart and Canberra. These two new PoPs will interconnect with Exetel’s PoPs in all other States and the NT providing Exetel with the ability to deliver services using its own leased fibre to all of its Australian users. The new PoPs are particularly important in allowing Exetel to continue to enhance its VoIP services and will also make it possible for Exetel to provide high speed SHDSL and Ethernet services to business and government organisations in those locations.

The new Tasmanian and ACT PoPs are planned to be activated before the end of July 2008.

June 2008

June 18th 2008 Exetel Signs Contract To Provide Data Over Mobile Services

Exetel has extended its contractual arrangements with Optus to allow the provision of data over mobile services to Exetel customers via the Australia wide Optus mobile GSM network. Exetel has been looking for a viable data over mobile service for almost two years and is now happy that its arrangements with Optus will allow it to provide high speed broadband services to well over 90% of Australia’s population at very affordable prices.

Exetel expects to be able to start providing mobile data services well before the end of 2008 assuming that the current plans for completing the work required to provision, fault fix and supply sims and USB connectors is completed on the currently agreed schedules.

Looking in to the future Exetel expects that approximately 50% of Australian broadband users will use broadband services delivered via HSDPA services within the next three years

June 26th 2008 Exetel Breaks All Financial Records

With a less than a week to go to the end of the 07/08 Financial year Exetel has exceeded all of its planned targets and broken all previous financial 'records'.

June 2008 is Exetel's 51st consecutive record month since it issued its first invoices in March 2004

June Quarter 2008 is Exetel's 18th successive record quarter

Six Months ending June 30th 2008 is Exetel's 10th successive record half year

June 30th 2008 is Exetel's 5th successive record year

July 2008

July 11th 2008 Exetel Delivers In Excess Of 3 gbps Of Data To Customers For First Time

Exetel ‘s network started in February 2004 with the very modest capacity of 20 megabits per second of bandwidth. Since that time, as the Exetel customer base has grown, Exetel has upgraded the network on an average of twice each month every month. The rapid growth in the number of customers selecting Exetel as their ISP continued throughout the past 4 years with the network growing to a capacity of 1,000 megabits per second in March 2007 and then 2,000 megabits per second in January 2008.

Last night Exetel’s customers downloaded at a new record level of slightly in excess of 3,000 megabits per second – a growth of 15,000% over the original bandwidth.

July 21st 2008 Exetel Acitivate’s PoP In ACT

Exetel has extended its Australian network by activating a PoP in the ACT to connect ACT and Queanbeyan residential, business and Government ADSL1, ADSL. SHDSL and large scale Ethernet users. Over the past 12 months Exetel has expanded network capacity under its direct control by adding PoPs in WA, SA, NT, Vic and Qld and plans to add a Tasmanian PoP as soon as the BassLink connectivity between Tasmania and Victoria becomes available.

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