Exetel

Infobox Company
name = Exetel Pty. Ltd.

type = Private
genre =
foundation = Sydney, Australia (29 August 2001)
founder =
location_city = Sydney
location_country = Australia
location =
locations =
area_served = Australia
key_people = Annette Linton (CEO), John Linton, Steve Waddington
industry = Telecommunication
products =
services = ADSL/ADSL2+, SHDSL, Wireless broadband, Residential and business web hosting, VPN, VoIP, POTS telephony, Mobile phone and HSPA internet.
revenue = AUD $35,000,000+ (2006-07)
AUD $50,000,000+ (2007-08 estimate)
operating_income =
net_income =
owner =
num_employees = 36
parent =
divisions =
subsid =
slogan =
homepage = [http://www.exetel.com.au/ www.exetel.com.au]
footnotes =
intl = yes

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 85,000+ residential and business customers.

Exetel resells products from Telstra (the incumbent), Optus, Verizon, Vodafone & Unwired. 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 (the incumbent) offers. Exetel does not deploy its own infrastructure outside of its own switching centre. Instead, it is a wholesale customer of several competitors.

History

Exetel began operating in the early 1990s as a technology consulting company, continuing to provide a wide range of 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. [cite web|url=http://www.exetel.com.au/news_main.php|title=New Events, Issues And Changes|publisher=Exetel|date=2008-05-22|accessdate=2008-06-23]

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, and the Australian Capital Territory. [Cite web|url=https://www.exetel.com.au/members/images/exetel_network.jpeg|title=Network Diagram|publisher=Exetel|accessdate=2008-06-23]

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. [cite web|url=http://www.deloitte.com/dtt/cda/doc/content/Technology_Fast_50_Australia_2007(3).pdf|title=Technology Fast 50 Australia 2007 - This year's shining stars|publisher=Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu|date=2008-02-22|accessdate=2008-06-23]

Currently Exetel employs 36 people and its revenue in the 2007-08 financial year was projected to be a little over AUD $45,000,000 compared with revenue of a little over AUD $33,000,000 in the 2006-07 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.

Exetel service offerings

General

Extel offers the following internet related services:

* ADSL/ADSL2+
* SHDSL
* Wireless Ethernet
* Mid-Band Ethernet
* Fibre
* Wireless broadband (Sydney metropolitan area only)
* Residential and business web hosting
* VPN
* VoIP
* POTS telephony
* Mobile phone
* HSPA

Online Gaming Services

The [http://games.exetel.com.au 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:

*
* Team Fortress 2
* Enemy Territory
* UT3 Demo
* Natural Selection

Bandwidth management

Exetel has 4Gbit/s of bandwidth linking its customers to Exetel and 1.85Gbit/s+ of bandwidth linking Exetel to national and international internet networks. A 1Gbit connection to PIPE Networks is also provided. Since it began operating Exetel has implemented various practices in an attempt in order to manage this bandwidth.

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. [cite web|url=http://bc.whirlpool.net.au|title=broadband choice|publisher=Whirlpool|accessdate=20 September|accessyear=2007] 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. [cite web|url=http://www.theage.com.au/news/icon/hatch-a-plan/2005/08/10/1123353369591.html|title=Hatch a plan|author=Adam Turner|publisher=The Age|date=2005-08-13] cite web|url=http://bc.whirlpool.net.au/isp.cfm/Exetel-ADSL/340-1.html|title=Exetel (plan pages)|publisher=Whirlpool|accessdate=2007-09-25] As of 1 November 2007 the off-peak period extends from midnight to midday AEST and the allowance within this period is 48GB per month.cite web |url=http://www.exetel.com.au/res_main.php|title=Exetel's Residential Services|accessdate=2007-11-27 (refer plan table pages)] cite web|url=http://forum.exetel.com.au/viewtopic.php?t=23386|title=Changes To Exetel Broadband Plans|publisher=Exetel|date=2007-09-17] 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.

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. [cite web|url=http://forum.exetel.com.au/viewtopic.php?t=25384|title=12 Midnight to 12 Noon 48 gb Reminder|publisher=Exetel|date=2008-02-01|accessdate=2008-03-01]

P2P deprioritisation

In November 2006, Exetel began restricting peer-to-peer traffic to 50 per cent of its total network capacity during peak periods. [cite web|url=http://www.smh.com.au/news/wireless--broadband/uproar-as-isp-selectively-cuts-download-speeds/2006/10/16/1160850850724.html|title=Uproar over ISP's slowdown|author=Asher Moses|publisher=The Sydney Morning Herald|date=2006-10-16] [cite web|url=http://forum.exetel.com.au/viewtopic.php?t=17721|title=P2P Traffic (2)|publisher=Exetel|date=2006-10-13] 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. [cite web|url=http://whirlpool.net.au/article.cfm/1734|title=Exetel mulls P2P caching|author=Phil Sweeney|publisher=Whirlpool|date=2007-05-27|accessdate=2007-12-04]

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. [cite web|url=http://whirlpool.net.au/article.cfm/1732|title=Netspace shaping P2P, claim customers|author=Phil Sweeney|publisher=Whirlpool|date=2007-05-16|accessdate=2007-12-04] Australian ISP Westnet eventually admitted that it had been secretly deprioritising P2P for a year. [cite web|url=http://whirlpool.net.au/article.cfm/1742|title=Westnet admits P2P prioritisation|author=Phil Sweeney|publisher=Whirlpool|date=2007-06-26|accessdate=2007-12-04]

P2P caching

After several announcements regarding P2P caching, on 28 November 2007, Exetel advised customers that a P2P caching system had been implemented. [cite web|url=http://forum.exetel.com.au/viewtopic.php?t=24143|title=P2P Caching|publisher=Exetel|date=2007-11-07|accessdate=2007-12-04]

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

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. [cite web|url=http://forum.exetel.com.au/viewtopic.php?t=13031|title=Notice to Exetel Customers Using Exetel Free Web Space|publisher=Exetel Pty Ltd|date=2005-03-16] [cite web|url=http://www.theage.com.au/news/troubleshooter/a-few-notes-of-caution/2007/07/14/1183833827956.html|title="A few notes of caution"|author=David Flynn|publisher=The Age|date=2007-07-16]

References

External links

* [http://www.exetel.com.au/ Exetel's official site]
* [http://www.exetel.com.au/news_main.php New Events, Issues And Changes]
* [http://forum.exetel.com.au/ Exetel's official help forum]
* [http://games.exetel.com.au/ Exetel Gaming Network official site]
* [http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum-threads.cfm?f=105 Exetel's subforum on Whirlpool]