How customers’ changing data needs led Virtutel to Telstra InfraCo Dark Fibre

Telstra InfraCo Dark Fibre offers Virtutel access to parts of our carrier-grade fibre-optic network for the first time, enabling them to create opportunities for growth through specialist solutions, outage handling and faster upgrades.

Businesses are consuming data differently, so clever service providers and network operators need to take control and evolve their networks to suit, that’s the message from David Allen, Managing Director at fast-growing Melbourne wholesale data and voice carrier, Virtutel.

As a pure wholesaler, providing specialised services to carriers, businesses and enterprises, internet service providers, system integrators, consultants and managed service providers, Virtutel has seen the changing dynamics of connectivity use firsthand.
 

“The widespread availability and lower costs of connectivity, alongside the growth of cloud computing, has led customers to consume connectivity differently. That has led us to evolve our network offerings too,” said David.

“For example, many of our customers are moving away from putting equipment into local data centres. Instead, they are utilising the cloud for everyday use cases like data backups. As a result, we are delivering higher capacity links than ever to cater for increased cloud usage.”

Virtutel is a full service domestic and international telecommunications provider of private network, Internet, colocation and voice services targeting the business, enterprise and government segments.

Obtaining access to dedicated dark fibre pairs enables Virtutel to offer customers high bandwidth connectivity between data centres and NBN Points of Interconnect (POIs), and scale as required. By using Telstra InfraCo Dark Fibre, Virtutel gains more control over their backhaul network than using a managed fibre service and a more favourable commercial model compared to building the fibre network themselves.

Telstra InfraCo has recently made 250+ routes of dark fibre available in 6 capitals across the nation, linking key points including NBN POIs, Cable Landing Stations and popular data centres. Virtutel will use Telstra InfraCo Dark Fibre to run capital city loops in Melbourne, Adelaide, Perth, Brisbane and Sydney, a move that will see it deliver highly resilient connectivity for large potential end users and create room for growth.

“I am a strong opponent of over-building networks. Putting new fibre in the ground in metro areas such as Melbourne or Sydney would cost millions of dollars and is unlikely to offer much of a return on the investment. If there’s glass already in the ground, I prefer to use it.”

Configuring the network for specialised use cases

Telstra InfraCo Dark Fibre offers network operators and service providers control over their fibre pairs. Using dark fibre, operators can configure Telstra’s fibre the way they want to offer differentiated propositions to their customers, as David explains.

“Dark fibre offers us the flexibility and control to do bespoke set-ups”, David Allen, Managing Director, Virtutel

“We pride ourselves on our specialised, custom solutions to meet the needs of today’s ever-changing business environment. Dark fibre offers us the flexibility and control to do bespoke set-ups, whether that’s providing 10GB links with redundant paths or instituting failover switches between data centres. We can only offer these solutions when we have control over the fibre and active equipment.

“For example, if our customer wants to sell to the financial services industry, dark fibre enables us to calibrate the network to deliver low latency to the ASX, for example, and meet our most stringent level security and data encryption protocols. It’s these capabilities of dark fibre that enable us to help our customers grow.”

David says building redundancy into the Virtutel network was also a key motivation for deploying dark fibre.

“It’s a fact of life for network operators that faults can happen, especially in metro areas where there’s lots of construction.

“Using Telstra InfraCo Dark Fibre, we are putting in dual redundant paths, taking multiple directions, to enhance our resiliency. We are confident if one path goes down, we can move our customers to our secondary path and ensure they can offer continued services to their end customers.

“Ultimately, we have more control over outages, enabling us to offer our vision of a great customer experience.”

Surpassing customer expectations with faster upgrade pathways

Virtutel uses its own transmission equipment on dark fibre routes, enabling them to control increases in backhaul capacity themselves.

“Customers today want immediacy. When you are a small, growing provider, you need to respond quickly. We can’t be held back by long design times if we want to succeed.

“With our active equipment in Telstra Exchanges, we can upgrade capacity when we are adding customer volume. Being able to deliver our services fast is a big competitive advantage for us.”

Control and privacy responsibilities lie with the operator

Despite the many advantages, dark fibre is not suited to every organisation or use case.

“Having this level of control and privacy comes with responsibilities,” David said. “Integrating dark fibre into your network requires a higher level of technical expertise than a typical managed service. At a minimum, you have to have a deep understanding of layer 2 networking. Then you’ll need the transmission technology and the knowledge and skills to set it up correctly so you can upgrade it in the future.

“And of course, the downside of Telstra not seeing into your network is you are responsible for troubleshooting any problems.”

A ready-built network, ready to serve at scale

Even though Telstra InfraCo Dark Fibre is new to the market, David has no doubts about the product.

“Telstra’s fibre network and assets are already in place at an Australia-wide scale that can’t be matched”, David Allen, Managing Director, Virtutel

“The breadth of the network and Telstra’s expertise in fibre delivery means we don’t worry about availability. And with multiple fibre paths, Telstra offers us a level of redundancy we can’t get elsewhere.

“We have complete confidence in the Telstra InfraCo Dark Fibre product. Their teams are highly skilled when it comes to fibre networks and we have always been impressed with the quality of the fibre. We are already working with our Telstra Wholesale account team to grow our dark fibre usage in our largest metro markets as we explore all the possibilities of this new offering.”

Download the Virtutel Telstra InfraCo Case study here