TransACT awards Vocus $0.5m IP transit contract

Stuart Corner
Wednesday, 17 June 2009 11:05

IT Industry - Strategy

TransACT, a provider of Internet, cable TV and telephony services in the ACT, has awarded wholesale communications provider, Vocus a contract to provide IP transit services that will be worth in excess of $0.5 million per year.

Vocus CEO, James Spenceley, said the deal marked a maturing of Vocus which started offering services only about  18 months ago. "We quoted for TransACT last year, but although they liked the proposal there was a concern that we were simply too new to be seriously considered.  It’s very satisfying that a company with the size and reputation of TransACT now sees Vocus as mature enough to be a selected as a major provider.”

TransACT CEO, Ivan Slavich, added “Although [Vocus] is still young, the Vocus team was very responsive to our specific needs. They have a genuine focus on customer service...We may have hesitated about Vocus a year ago, but the company’s reputation has demonstrated that they are now a key industry player."

Vocus will be responsible for carrying TransACT's incoming and outgoing Internet traffic to other ISPs in Australia and oversees through its local peering arrangements, international links and peering arrangements with overseas ISPs.

"TransACT has recently consolidated its transit providers, and this deal positions Vocus as the company’s primary IP transit provider, with the service set to continue to upgrade over the coming months," Vocus said. Spenceley told iTWire that he expected business from TransACT to increase as TransACT continued to  rationalise its IP transit suppliers.

Vocus has enjoyed spectacular growth since its launch  in early 2008. In April the company announced that it had signed $4.5m in new business in Q1 of 2009 and hired five new staff taking its total number of wholesale customers in Australia, USA and New Zealand to 80.

Spenceley, attributed the company's success to its focus on engineering expertise and customer service. "We only hire the most committed and talented engineers who work to rapid response times without the restrictive bureaucracy that the incumbents face. We empower our engineers to solve problems, not follow procedures.

"For example, the competition typically installs and upgrades services with terms of 21 days or more. Vocus not only connects customers in a day, we also offer four hour capacity upgrades across all on-net services every day of the year. In addition, we guarantee that customers will receive their contracts within 24 hours of agreeing the pricing structure – and that the Vocus service will be completed in 24 hours of cross connects being installed." He told iTWire, "It can take some of our large competitors up to 40 days to do what we can do in a couple of days."