Swift goes head on with Amcom

Tuesday, 16 May, 2000 - 22:00

PERTH-based Swiftel Pty Limited has placed itself in direct competition with newly merged Amcom Telecommunications Limited.

Swiftel was recently granted a tele-communications carrier licence by the Australian Communications Authority.

The company will provide a high-speed, high-bandwidth optical and wireless telecommunications network for corporate and government customers.

A spokesman for Swiftel said its fibre optic cable and switching technology was more sophisticated and able to carry far greater quantities of data than Amcom’s.

“The Swiftel network will have a ten gigabyte per second capacity, which is a lot by anyone’s standards,” he said.

“The technology has been developed by Lucent Technologies subsidiary Bell Laboratories.”

The network will support the transport needs of asynchronous transfer mode, frame relay and Internet protocol applications.

Swiftel CEO Chris Gale said this was the first time in Australia that such an advanced fibre optic cable had been laid.

“Swiftel is installing extremely large bandwidth pipes to prevent the congestion that business is currently experiencing due to the growth of electronic transmission,” Mr Gale said.

“Already, Swiftel is in discussion with several potential customers who have found their bandwidth requirements are significantly increasing and they need a higher capacity network to operate efficiently.”

Mr Gale said Swiftel planned its cable roll-out in the Perth CBD in July to connect major buildings in the area.

Future roll-outs are planned for West Perth and East Perth.

Swiftel will also offer a high core count within its fibre optic cable, allowing customers the opportunity to lease separate, secure lines that deliver up to 10 gigabytes per second for their individual networks.

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