Nextgen Networks buys Silk Telecom

Tag : silk fibre
Nextgen says it will immediately start leveraging Silk's fibrefootprint to enhance and extend the reach of its network, which isAustralia's third largest national fibre network.

Nextgen's newly appointed managing director, Phil Sykes, said:"There is a strong strategic fit between the operations ofNextgen and Silk. Both organisations have been experiencing highgrowth in the delivery of high speed data networking services formedium-to-large corporate, government and carrier customers.Silk...[is a] natural complement to Nextgen's establishedinter-capital telecommunications business...By leveraging thecombined value of these complementary assets, we have created abigger, stronger telecommunications group that will be better ableto support the data services needs of existing and newcustomers."

Silk Telecom was created in 2005 by combing the telecommunicationsbusinesses of three power utilities: ETSA (SA)l Powercor (Vic) andCitipower (Melbourne), all wholly-owned subsidiaries of Hong Kongbased Cheung Kong Group. All three remain major customers of Silk.In December 2006 Silk acquired Western Power's telecommunicationsarm, Bright Telecommunications giving it a fibre network in Perth,and a telecommunications services business supplying wholesale,corporate, business and residential customers.

Silk also has the distinction of being one of only a handful ofcarriers in the world to embrace Provider Backbone Transport - anethernet technology developed by Nortel as a metro accessalternative to MPLS. After BT awarded Nortel and Siemens (now NokiaSiemens Networks) a PBT contract for its 21CN network the prospectsfor PBT were looking good, but BT has recently reduced itscommitment to PBT and is looking for an MPLS solution. Also, PBThas never been supported by Cisco or Juniper Networks.

However, according to Nortel, Provider Backbone Transport savesSilk the cost of more expensive and complex transport protocols andgives customers better value and faster services over the samepipe. At the time of the deal, Silk CEO, Simon Perkins, said:"Nortel's PBB/PBT enabled metro ethernet solution worksseamlessly with our Nortel Common Photonic Layer backbone providinga fully integrated solution at a reduced level of cost andcomplexity when compared to other technologies. As a result, we areable to differentiate ourselves in the marketplace by providingmore cost-effective services to our customers."


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