Alberta SuperNet a good sales pitch for Axia’s international endeavours

As part of an agreement announced last month, Calgary-based Axia NetMedia Corp. and its partner VINCI Networks, a wholly owned subsidiary of Sogea Construction of France, are currently operating eight IP network concessions in France that reach 470 communities and 100,000 businesses.Axia was sought out by VINCI in large part because of its position as the operator of the Alberta SuperNet, and with that as its sales model the company seems well situated to pursue more ventures outside of Canada. "The SuperNet is probably the best IP network in the world and it’s our main reference client," Axia’s VP investor relations and communications, Dawn Tinling, tells Network Letter."Any country that wants to do something like this, we’re interested in talking to." For France, the main attraction was to have IP replace the existing legacy networks. The joint venture already has 15- to 20-year contracts in eight concessions, which allows the partners to sell wholesale IP services to local, regional, national and international operators. The venture is similar to the network in Alberta, except development in France is being pursued on an individual region, department or community basis, which Tinling describes as "lots of little mini SuperNets."VINCI contacted Axia about two years ago about getting involved on the network side. "I think it speaks to our demonstrated ability to deliver world-class performance in the managed network services sector," says Tinling. "With our experiences as the designer and operator of the Alberta SuperNet, we really are an expert at this."Completed in September 2005, Alberta SuperNet was a joint venture between Axia and Bell. It was born out of a provincial public policy initiative to raise the level of broadband services in Alberta, eliminate the digital divide between rural and urban communities and help drive the province’s future growth and prosperity.The SuperNet also provided an open access model allowing an influx of ISPs to buy bandwidth from the network and sell high-speed access to their own customers. In all respects, the SuperNet has been highly successful.According to Tinling, the SuperNet provides high-speed access to about 86% of Alberta’s population, whereas before most communities only had dial-up. It connects 429 communities and provides connectivity to 4,200 government learning, health, library and municipal facilities.Also, the number of service providers has ballooned from only four or five previously to about 60 today – with 32 more currently negotiating access. But SuperNet’s biggest benefit to Axia may be that it provides a sales pitch for the corporation’s ability to manage network services: overseas ventures present the opportunity for more expansive operations.While Alberta is actually bigger than France geographically, it has barely more than one-twentieth of the population. So by being able reach 86% of Alberta’s 3.2 million people, the SuperNet is close to being maxed-out in that province. Conversely, with only eight concessions in France, Axia’s network there can already service 2.6 million people. Tinling says Axia thinks it will bid on another 30 concessions in France within the next year alone.As for future ventures, Tinling says Australia and Ireland have taken a look at the SuperNet, adding that Northern Africa and the Middle East are good prospects for Axia. In fact, at the time of this article chairman and CEO Art Price was visiting prospective countries to talk about the potential for managed networks.Axia’s venture in France may only prove to be a stepping stone between Alberta and the rest of the world.

Alberta SuperNet a good sales pitch for Axia’s international endeavours

News | 03/29/2006 5:00 am EST

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