Kentrox/AccessTel JV wins NBN Co facilities monitoring contract

Stuart Corner
Wednesday, 14 December 2011 11:39

IT Industry - Deals

NBN Co has awarded network management services and technology company, AccessTel Kentrox Australia (AKA) and contract to provide management services for its network facilities

AKA said it would be "providing a comprehensive site management solution, including the Remote suite of products, Optima management system, and associated services'¦[which] provides a complete view of infrastructure status at point-of-interconnect (PoI) and fibre access node (FAN) sites and real-time and historical data relevant to NBN's infrastructure and environment."

The Remote suite of products provides site monitoring including site power, environmental conditions, and out-of-band access to key network equipment for diagnostics and remote configuration.

The main applications NBN Co will initially use the AKA products for include:

- site management to notify technicians of potential operational issues and provide the ability to monitor access to racks and cabinets;

- remote site management, monitoring, access, and control of critical network equipment at sites;

- power management to monitor and send notifications if site power issues occur;

- environmental management to monitor conditions such as temperature and humidity and receive notifications of equipment failure.

AKA is a joint venture between Australian company, AccessTel Pty Ltd and Ohio based Kentrox. It was formed in July 2011. However prior to that Kentrox had been in Australia for 15 years and AccessTel has been its partner for 10 years, selling and implementing Kentrox products.

Announcing the JV, Kentrox CEO, Rich Cremona, said: " We already have hundreds of sites in Australia using Kentrox products, and having a local presence will enable us to help service providers, whether in telecommunications, utilities, or other industries, improve their networks while reducing operating costs.'

He added: "During the last five years, we have seen considerable growth in our activities with service providers throughout Australia due to more mobile subscribers, increased service offerings, and the creation of a national broadband network,"

Melbourne-based AccessTel describes itself as "a global company that markets, sells and supports specialised telecommunication solutions [and] provides a range of professional services to the telecommunications industry." It says "We are focused on Network management, but are investigating the supply of numerous other solutions in the regions where we are represented."