THE increasing adoption of cloud-based communication technology has prompted Perth-based telecommunications specialist VoNEX to set its sights on becoming one of Australia’s top five telcos in the next five years.
In the midst of a merger with Brisbane-based iTrinity, VoNEX is considering a public listing as it commercialises technology developed by Perth-based Angus Parker.
The technology involves a specific piece of hardware which enables traditional land-line based calling and distribution to be handled over the internet and managed from the cloud.
It’s unique in that users can access calls and messages through multiple devices from any global location with an internet connection -including diverting calls from mobiles back to office lines and transferring between users.
The company has grown over six years and now has established users across Australia, the US, Singapore, and most recently Indonesia.
While the company wouldn’t disclose user numbers, it has reported monthly growth of 8.4 per cent over the past 18 months.
That growth has been enabled through contracts with companies that use the ‘white label’ VoNEX technology and brand it as their own to sell phone plans.
The company has now decided to merge with one of those partners, iTrinity, to create a company that VoNEX chief executive Brydie McKee said would facilitate rapid growth.
“By acquisition, which is effectively what we’ve done here with iTrinity, that’s the quickest way to grow your books,” Ms McKee told WA Business News.
Ms McKee said the VoNEX technology was now proven to be robust and she expected it to catapult the company to amid the highest-ranking telcos on a revenue basis.
Chief operating officer Andrew Rose said merging with iTrinity enabled VoNEX to pursue commercialisation more effectively.
“They’ve done the hard work to build those relationships to go direct to market - we’ve never gone direct to market before - that’s really what we’re buying,” Mr Rose said.
A public listing was also a possibility to raise about $5 million to invest in the company’s growth.
VoNEX’s expansion is riding the wave of increasing uptake of internet-based communication services.
Internet service providers such as iiNet have been offering VoIP (voice over internet protocol) services for years, but Western Australian state manager of consultancy NSC Group, Chris Arter, said businesses had only recently begun to accept internet communications, including cloud-based services.
“Cloud is now mature; Western Australians tend to wait until things are mature to ensure it’s robust. Now that it’s a mature product and there are a lot of mature companies out there, customers are now looking more actively at the cloud,” he said.
The growth of WA’s economy and the need for businesses to rethink how they communicated with larger workforces had also prompted an influx of companies looking to gain market share.
The entrance of Indianapolis-based unified communications provider Interactive Intelligence is one such example. It has attributed the decision to establish a Perth base to the increasing spend on new communication technology.
“Western Australia has undergone a tremendous transition, both in terms of economic growth and technology adoption,” managing director Australia, Brendan Maree, said.
“The state is increasingly investing in unified communications; as a result, we have seen a great need in the region for our solutions.”
NSC Group both consults on and provides unified communications - the term given to integrated internet-based communication services. Mr Arter said he wasn’t concerned about the growth in market players.
“There’s plenty of room for all the parties to play - competition is good because it helps the customers expand their knowledge and understanding of what they need,” he said.
While iiNet’s transition to also becoming a telecommunications provider is not new, it’s moving more towards providing unified communications tools for the residential market.
Its recently launched Budii product has introduced a new internet-based smartphone, as well as video calling through a connected tablet.
