| New VoIP player aims to be market leader in 12 months |
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| by Stuart Corner | |
| Tuesday, 04 April 2006 | |
  
The company aims to lead the residential VoIP market by revenue and customer numbers and to be "a significant player" in the large corporate market. It is offering what it claims is a unique package: $49.99 per month for unllmited local and national calls (calls to mobiles are 27 cents per minute). Unlike other VoIP offerings no distinction is made between customers on its own network and those on the PSTN: all are accessed via their PSTN number. It claims to be offering QoS for voice between customers' CPE and the PSTN interface. Other plans are 200 minutes of local and national fixed calls for $19.99 per month and $120 per month for unlimited calls and a 256/64 DSL service with 5Gbyte download, including line rental. DSL plans are available at up to 1.5M/256k The company does not presently offer a softphone or handsets for its residential product, only an, optional analogue telephone adaptor. Customers can supply their own. Its corporate plan costs $75 per user per month for unlimited local and national calls and 25 cent per minute for mobile calls. This is an IP centrex offering using a Mitel IP telephony switch and includes a Mitel handset. The company claims to have secured $720,000 worth of corporate contracts in the two months it has been trialling its service, including a number of small hotels and tourist properties - a market for which it claim to have developed a very cost effective product offering 50 percent saving on current PSTN rates. To fund its expansion Broad Investments is planning to raise $1.5 million through a share and option issue to a US venture capitalist and says it does not expect to need further funds. Executive chairman,Vaz Hovanessian, said he expected existing contracts to give the company sufficient revenue to fund further expansion. Broad Investments has also acquired, for $100,000 in cash and $400,000 in stock at 10 cents per share, broadband ISP Shiftreload which has about 2000 residential customers. The CEO Shiftreload, Michael Anderson ahs joined BroadIP as its CTO. At 31 December 2005 BroadInvestments had cash of $342,000 and receivables of $121,000, but trade and other payables liability totalled$777,000. Out of total contributed equity of $8.2milloin it had racked up accumulated losses of $8 million. The company started life as a West Australain PSTN reseller, Pahth Telecommunications reseller in 1994. It recently exited its telephony retail and CPE business and late last year sold its wholesale business. Its main revenue sources currently are from two mobile content business acquisitions made late last year: MTX and Glovebox. Details of BroadIP's offerings are available on its website, which opened today www.broadIP.com.au |
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