Vodafone launching in NextDC Perth datacentre

NextDC has announced that Vodafone Australia will be launching a point of presence (PoP) in its P1 datacentre in Perth, which it said would enable the telecommunications provider to deliver 4G services to Western Australian customers.

Vodafone will link the datacentre PoP with its own "super hub", NextDC said, bolstering mobile network resilience and redundancy and IP transit and peering capacity, as well as hosting network function virtualisation (NFV) equipment to run mobile and fixed network core applications.

Under the deal, NextDC will additionally provide real-time telemetry on Vodafone's racks using its OneDC cloud datacentre infrastructure management (DCIM) service, which it said will be integrated with Vodafone's existing facility-monitoring systems.

The datacentre will also link Vodafone with future subsea cable connections that will connect to P1, including the Indigo submarine cable system being built by SubPartners, Google, Telstra, Singtel, Alcatel Submarine Networks, AARNet, and Indosat Ooredoo, which will connect Sydney, Perth, Singapore, and Jakarta with a design capacity of 18Tbps by mid-2019.

Vodafone rivals Telstra and Optus already have points of presence in NextDC's Tier III P1 datacentre, along with iiNet and Nextgen.

"Establishing a presence in NextDC's P1 Perth datacentre is an exciting step for Vodafone as we continue to focus on delivering a great network experience to our customers using the broad range of offerings from NextDC, including the datacentre's community of carriers, content delivery networks (CDNs), transit networks, and dark fibre service providers," Vodafone GM of Network Engineering and Performance Barry Kezik said.

Access to dark fibre service providers could come through Superloop, which has been expanding its PoPs in NextDC datacentres, in March establishing a new PoP at the C1 datacentre in Canberra in addition to its national footprint throughout NextDC's datacentres in Perth, Sydney, Melbourne, and Brisbane.

Vodafone has been focused on boosting its mobile network, at the start of the year announcing that it would be working with networking giants Ericsson and Cisco to virtualise its core network.

The network architecture solution makes use of Ericsson's Hyperscale Datacenter System and such software as Ericsson Cloud Execution Environment, Ericsson Cloud Manager, and Cloud SDN controller.

Cisco is contributing its WAN Automation Engine; IP Network VNFs including IOS XR 9000v and Cloud Services Router 1000v; virtualised and physical security technologies including its Adaptive Security Appliance and Cisco Firepower security gateway; and security support services for the Vodafone project.

NextDC in August reported a net profit of AU$23 million for FY17, up more than twelve-fold over the AU$1.8 million reported in the previous year. Earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortisation (EBITDA) increased by 76.9 percent to AU$49 million, while total revenue rose by 33.2 percent to AU$123.6 million.

More than 95 percent of its revenue was generated by NextDC's datacentre services, which brought in AU$117.6 million during the financial year, with the company also investing AU$159 million in new and existing developments throughout the period.

As of June 30, it had 772 customers, up from 647 in the previous year, with 6,342 cross connects.

Earlier this month, however, NextDC's AU$1.87 per share bid to acquire the Asia Pacific Data Centre Group (APDC) was discouraged by APDC's board, which told shareholders they should instead vote in favour of 360 Capital's bid of AU$1.95 a share.

NextDC is the sole tenant of APDC's datacentre facilities in Sydney, Melbourne, and Perth, with investor relations manager Rahul Badethalav previously telling ZDNet that there are "meaningful benefits" for customers in NextDC being the datacentre operator as well as the owner of the land.

"Naturally, given our datacentres sit on the land itself, it would be a fairly straightforward transaction to make," Badethalav said in July.

APDC shareholders will vote on the outcome on November 6.

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