Exetel

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Exetel Pty. Ltd.
Type Private
Industry Telecommunication
Founded Sydney, Australia (29 August 2001)
Headquarters Sydney, Australia
Area served Australia
Key people Annette Linton (CEO), John Linton, Steve Waddington
Services ADSL/ADSL2+, SHDSL, Wireless broadband, Residential and business web hosting, VPN, VoIP, POTS telephony, Mobile phone and HSPA internet.
Revenue A$55,000,000+ (2009-10)
A$61,000,000+ (2010-11 estimate)
Employees 110
Website www.exetel.com.au

Exetel is an Australian ISP which provides ADSL, web hosting, VoIP, and other internet services to customers across Australia. Exetel's headquarters are based in offices in North Sydney and its switching centre is in a secure Data Centre facility in the Sydney CBD. Exetel has 110,000+ residential and business customers.

Exetel resells products from NBNCo, Telstra, Optus, Verizon Business, AAPT & BigAir. Many of the larger Australian ISPs have chosen to deploy their own infrastructure (including wireless) in order to provide faster and less expensive services than Telstra offers. Exetel does not deploy its own infrastructure outside of its own switching centres. Instead, it is a wholesale customer of Tier 1 wholesale telco providers who provide IP Transit, Intercapital Transmission and various Residential and Business Grade Access Network products that Exetel integrate and manage for its customers.

Exetel donates one third of the profit it makes to various, community based, endangered species protection and regeneration programs around Australia. Almost $450,000 was donated in 2009. Details on all of these programs can be found on the website[1]

Contents

[edit] History

Exetel began operating in the early 1990s as a technology consulting company, providing technical and management consulting services until December 2003. At that time the Exetel administration decided to become a service provider of data and telephone communications services.[2]

It began offering ADSL1 services in mid February 2004, SHDSL corporate services in April 2004 and Wireless Broadband through Unwired in June 2004. Towards the end of 2004 Exetel added wire line telephony services using the Verizon network and mobile services using the Vodafone network. Exetel activated its own VoIP switches in March 2006 and began offering ADSL2+ services on 20 July 2006.

Exetel now has PoPs in New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland, South Australia, Western Australia, Tasmania, Australian Capital Territory and Auckland.[3]

On 18 November 2007 Exetel was included in the Deloitte's Rising Star listings as one of the fastest growing 50 Australian technology companies with a cumulative growth of 159% in that two year period.[4]

Currently Exetel employs 50 people in its North Sydney office, 60 people in its Sri Lankan office and its revenue in the 2009-10 financial year was a little over A$55,000,000 compared with revenue of a little over A$49,000,000 in the 2008-09 financial year. Exetel has been profitable in each of its years of operation to date and is on track to meet its profit forecasts for the current financial year.

[edit] Exetel service offerings

[edit] General

Exetel offers the following internet related services:

[edit] Online Gaming Services

The Exetel Gaming Network is a free Online Gaming Network hosted by Exetel. The service is made up of numerous gaming servers, a website, forum, gaming statistics and a ticketing support system as well as an admin team for each game they host. Hosted games are:

[edit] Bandwidth management

Exetel has over 10Gbit/s of bandwidth linking its customers to Exetel and over 10Gbit/s+ of bandwidth linking Exetel to national and international internet networks. Multiple 1Gbit connections to PIPE Networks is also provided. Since it began operating Exetel has implemented various practices in an attempt in order to manage this bandwidth including the recent implementation of a Google cache.

[edit] Uncounted/off-peak period

In Australia ISPs generally offer plans with relatively low download allowances by comparison to the United States and unlimited plans are virtually non-existent.[5] When it began operating Exetel took the unusual step of providing users with significant "free" data in an attempt to manage its bandwidth more effectively. It actively encourages users to carry out their heavy downloads during what is currently called either the "uncounted" or "off-peak" period. Times and allowances during this period have also varied since the policy was first implemented in February 2004.[6][7] As of 21 July 2009 the off-peak period extends from midnight to midday AEST and the allowance within this period is 60GB per month.[7][8][9] This period and its allowance is available to all residential ADSL and ADSL2+ customers, except those on bundled ADSL plans or zero quota ADSL2+ plans.[7][8]

Despite there being a defined limit in the uncounted/off-peak period, Exetel does not actively prevent customers from downloading beyond that limit. While it used to discourage such action by placing users who exceed the limit in any month into separate bandwidth pools for the remainder of the month it, as of 1 February 2008, began applying excess charges to any downloads beyond the off-peak limit.[7][9][10]

[edit] P2P deprioritisation

In November 2006, Exetel began restricting peer-to-peer traffic to 50 per cent of its total network capacity during peak periods.[11][12] Six months later, in May 2007, Exetel reported that the P2P deprioritisation system was a success and announced that it was investigating the implementation of a P2P caching system.[13]

Exetel's assertions that it was not the only ISP using deprioritisation lead to customers of other ISPs claiming that their ISP was also deprioritising P2P.[14] Australian ISP Westnet eventually admitted that it had been secretly deprioritising P2P for a year.[15]

[edit] P2P caching

After several announcements regarding P2P caching, on 28 November 2007, Exetel advised customers that a P2P caching system had been implemented.[16]

Since installing the caching system, Exetel has ceased deprioritising P2P.

[edit] Copyright issues

In 2005, legal action by MIPI against another ISP resulted in a third ISP being found guilty of breaching copyright by allowing hosting of illegally acquired content. As a direct result of this Exetel believed it necessary to monitor content stored on servers under its control. On 16 March 2005 it notified its customers that it would begin implementing a policy of deleting certain multimedia files from user webspaces. Customers are able to request exemption from the nightly deletions.[17][dead link][18]

Until the end of February 2010, Exetel's policy regarding the alleged downloading of copyrighted content was to temporarily block a user's access and lead them to a page explaining why they had been blocked. The page provided users with different options as to how to proceed.[19] Following the outcome of the Roadshow Films v iiNet court case, Extel's policy has changed to one of simply emailing relevant customers when a copyright infringement is received.[20]

[edit] Endangered species conservation

Exetel support various endangered species projects, currently: Gouldian finch, Black Cockatoo, Western Ground Parrot, Long-nosed Potaroo, Red-Tailed Phascogale, Regent Honeyeater and Spiny Daisy conservation. They are also funding a Sri Lankan Elephant/Human Conflict Reduction programme. Exetel donate up to 33% of profits to these projects[21]

[edit] References

  1. ^ http://www.exetel.com.au/res_main.php
  2. ^ "New Events, Issues And Changes". Exetel. 22 May 2008. http://www.exetel.com.au/news_main.php. Retrieved 23 June 2008. 
  3. ^ "Network Diagram". Exetel. https://www.exetel.com.au/members/images/exetel_network.jpeg. Retrieved 23 June 2008. 
  4. ^ "Technology Fast 50 Australia 2007 - This year's shining stars" (PDF). Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu. 22 February 2008. http://www.deloitte.com/dtt/cda/doc/content/Technology_Fast_50_Australia_2007(3).pdf. Retrieved 23 June 2008. 
  5. ^ "broadband choice". Whirlpool. http://bc.whirlpool.net.au. Retrieved 20 September 2007. 
  6. ^ Adam Turner (13 August 2005). "Hatch a plan". The Age. http://www.theage.com.au/news/icon/hatch-a-plan/2005/08/10/1123353369591.html. 
  7. ^ a b c d "Exetel (plan pages)". Whirlpool. http://bc.whirlpool.net.au/isp.cfm/Exetel-ADSL/340-1.html. Retrieved 25 September 2007. 
  8. ^ a b "Exetel's Residential Services". http://www.exetel.com.au/res_main.php. Retrieved 27 November 2007.  (refer plan table pages)
  9. ^ a b "Changes To Exetel Broadband Plans". Exetel. 17 September 2008. http://forum.exetel.com.au/viewtopic.php?t=23386. 
  10. ^ "12 Midnight to 12 Noon 48 gb Reminder". Exetel. 1 February 2008. http://forum.exetel.com.au/viewtopic.php?t=25384. Retrieved 1 March 2008. 
  11. ^ Asher Moses (16 October 2006). "Uproar over ISP's slowdown". The Sydney Morning Herald. http://www.smh.com.au/news/wireless--broadband/uproar-as-isp-selectively-cuts-download-speeds/2006/10/16/1160850850724.html. 
  12. ^ "P2P Traffic (2)". Exetel. 13 October 2006. http://forum.exetel.com.au/viewtopic.php?t=17721. 
  13. ^ Phil Sweeney (27 May 2007). "Exetel mulls P2P caching". Whirlpool. http://whirlpool.net.au/article.cfm/1734. Retrieved 4 December 2007. 
  14. ^ Phil Sweeney (16 May 2007). "Netspace shaping P2P, claim customers". Whirlpool. http://whirlpool.net.au/article.cfm/1732. Retrieved 4 December 2007. 
  15. ^ Phil Sweeney (26 June 2007). "Westnet admits P2P prioritisation". Whirlpool. http://whirlpool.net.au/article.cfm/1742. Retrieved 4 December 2007. 
  16. ^ "P2P Caching". Exetel. 7 November 2007. http://forum.exetel.com.au/viewtopic.php?t=24143. Retrieved 4 December 2007. 
  17. ^ "Notice to Exetel Customers Using Exetel Free Web Space". Exetel Pty Ltd. 16 March 2005. http://forum.exetel.com.au/viewtopic.php?t=13031. 
  18. ^ David Flynn (16 July 2007). "A few notes of caution". The Age. http://www.theage.com.au/news/troubleshooter/a-few-notes-of-caution/2007/07/14/1183833827956.html. Retrieved 10 February 2010. 
  19. ^ "Exetel Abuse Block". Exetel. http://blocked.exetel.com.au/abuse.php. Retrieved 10 February 2010. 
  20. ^ Ben Grubb (9 February 2010). "Exetel changes piracy policy". ZDNet. http://www.zdnet.com.au/news/communications/soa/Exetel-changes-piracy-policy-/0,130061791,339300906,00.htm?omn&omnRef=1337. Retrieved 10 February 2010. 
  21. ^ "Help Stop The Destruction Of Endangered Species". Exetel. http://www.exetel.com.au/enviro_feat.php. 

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