NBN critic Vocus sees its benefits

Dark fibre provider and datacentre company Vocus has predicted that it stands to benefit from the roll-out of the National Broadband Network (NBN), despite being a member of the Alliance for Affordable Broadband, a strident critic of the NBN project.

In a letter signed by CEO James Spenceley, among with a number of other telecommunications CEOs last year, the alliance was critical of the cost of the NBN roll-out, stating that the group believed that the total cost for the network could be up to $55.2 billion once the cost of the $11 billion Telstra deal was taken into account.

In an investor presentation posted on the Australian Stock Exchange this morning, Vocus pointed to TeleGeography figures that indicate that in an NBN world, IP transit annual compound growth will be 46.9 per cent, compared to 40.2 per cent without. Vocus said it was in the market "sweet spot" because it could offer datacentre, transit and internet services, and would position itself to capitalise on NBN opportunities.

In the year to 30 June 2011, its first since listing, the company today posted an 80 per cent increase in profits before tax of $10.2 million, up from $5.7 million in the previous financial year.

In a year of expansion into the datacentre market with the acquisition of E3 Network's Sydney and Melbourne datacentres, as well as the acquisition of the PerthIX datacentre, Vocus also posted a strong revenue growth of 77 per cent to $31 million from $17.5 million.

In a statement, Spenceley said that with this expansion, Vocus was positioned for good future growth.

"Vocus is ideally placed to become the communications infrastructure provider of choice and capitalise on the growing cloud computing market," he said.