It has been suggested that Grapevine (internet service provider) be merged into this article or section. (Discuss)

TransACT Capital Communications

Type	Private
Founded	2001
Headquarters	Canberra, Australia
Key people	Wayne Bouffler (CTO) Gordon Dunsford (GM) Ivan Slavich CEO John Mackay, Chairman
Industry	Subscription Television Telecommunications
Products	TransTV Digital TransWEB TransMOBILE TransTALK TransSELECT
Website	www.transact.com.au

TransACT Capital Communications is an Australian telecommunications company based in Canberra which provides broadband internet access, fixed telephony, cable television services, and, more recently, mobile phone services using the Vodafone Network, in Canberra and a subset of these services in Queanbeyan and throughout South-east New South Wales. The company is part-owned by ActewAGL (the main energy and water utility company in the Australian Capital Territory) and since February 2004 TransACT has contracted many of their administrative and marketing functions to ActewAGL.

The development of TransACT's vision and business plan commenced in 1996, led by a small team comprising Robin Eckermann (Chief Architect), Joe Ceccato, Robert Clarke and Jane Taylor, working under the guidance of ACTEW Executive Neville Smith. One of the distinguishing features of the business model was the adoption of an open network philosophy - many years before this approach attracted widespread interest around the world.

The company has built a fibre-optic network to parts of Canberra and Queanbeyan where it owns above-ground electricity distribution network and provides services to customers in a variety of ways.

The original Phase 1 rollout was based on an FTTC (fibre to the curb) design, with nodes being placed within 300 metres of properties. From these nodes TransACT offer VDSL services to residential and business consumers. The original Phase 1 VDSL network is available to over 25,000 homes in the region. VDSL services include high speed data connection to an ISP, Video On Demand and a telephone service.

A typical street-side TransACT pit.

The newer Phase 2 rollout involves TransACT placing its own DSLAM equipment within Telstra exchanges and utilising their own fibre-optic backhaul to their main data centre in Dickson, ACT. TransACT completed their ADSL 2/2+ rollout on 1 March, 2007. The Phase 2 network is available to anyone outside of Phase 1 with a Telstra phone line in Canberra and Queanbeyan, as long as they are within sufficient distance of their telephone exchange - as with any ADSL service.

TransACT operates an open network with eight companies providing ISP services. These include a mix of large national ISPs and smaller local operations. One of the ISPs (Grapevine) is jointly owned by TransACT and ActewAGL.

TransACT also offer a range of wholesale services to business and ISP customers, including colocation, IP transit and high speed point-to-point or point-to-multipoint data connections of up to 1 Gbit/s for businesses and ISPs anywhere on their network.

In 2007 it was announced that TransACT would take control of Victorian cable TV and telecommunications company Neighbourhood Cable from 1 January 2008.^[1]

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• TransACT homepage
• TransACT Wholesale homepage
• ActewAGL homepage
• ISPs available through TransACT