NewsBite

IT networks

This Month

Plenty of CEOs have been to the US to consider how AI could change their businesses this year.

How CEOs are using AI, from driverless forklifts to bird counts

Everyone’s doing it, but are they doing it properly? Here is a fascinating snapshot of what Australian companies are doing with artificial intelligence.

  • Anthony Macdonald and James Thomson
HMC Capital’s David Di Pilla is about to pull off one of the deals of the year.

‘Overvalued’: Early verdict on DigiCo float feels like a GyG rerun

David Di Pilla cleverly and quickly seized on the hottest story in markets to get his listing away. But a bigger debate is brewing on the data centre sector.

  • James Thomson

November

Di Pilla’s $4b data centre play books December debut on ASX

The much-heralded float from the deal-making dynamo taps into one of this year’s hottest themes across the infrastructure, technology and property sectors.

  • Nick Lenaghan
SkyMesh is a major provider of internet connectivity in remote areas via the NBN network.

Salter Brothers zero in on Brisbane telco reseller; launches raise

Street Talk understands the Melbourne-based technology fund has entered into exclusive terms for a 100 per cent acquisition of Bigblu Broadband’s SkyMesh.

  • Sarah Thompson, Kanika Sood and Emma Rapaport

October

Telstra is ploughing 14,000 kilometres of fibre into the earth for a new intercity communications network.

Australia’s fibre backbone race picks up speed

The Vocus Group’s $5 billion purchase of fibre networks reflects the intensifying competition among companies installing the cables that will handle data for the nation’s digital needs.

  • Jenny Wiggins
Advertisement
Australian investors are rejecting a Verizon takeover bid for Frontier.

Cooper Investors slams Verizon’s Frontier takeover price

The Australian fund manager is the first shareholder to publicly say it plans to vote against the $14 billion deal.

  • Matthew Cranston
Jason Haynes, CEO of Boost Mobile.

Young people, Telstra sceptics: How Boost CEO plans to grow telco

The pre-paid telco backed by Peter Adderton and Paul Keating claims to be gaining market share in an industry that CEO Jason Haynes says is riddled with too many choices.

  • Jenny Wiggins

September

Former Optus CEO Kelly Bayer Rosmarin testified at the Senate inquiry into the telco’s outage

Optus communications ‘manifestly inadequate’ in 2023 phone outage

Senators want new rules to force telco groups to keep the public updated when phone and internet connections fail.

  • Updated
  • Jenny Wiggins

August

TPG Telecom chief executive Inaki Berroeta.

TPG Telecom cuts 120 jobs as interim profits slide

The telco group, which is carrying more than $4 billion in debt, says it needs to keep reducing its expenses.

  • Jenny Wiggins
Aussie Broadband co-founder and managing director Phillip Britt

Aussie Broadband pays first dividend, cuts jobs

Aussie Broadband declared its first-ever dividend after it connected more customers to the internet, boosting annual net profit by 21 per cent.

  • Jenny Wiggins
AirTrunk owns 11 large-scale data centres or data centre developments, including this one in Hong Kong. It is run out of North Sydney, Australia.

ASIC puts Macquarie’s $20b AirTrunk sale on private markets watchlist

ASIC will spend the next two years looking at private markets deals, including a deal-of-the-year in the making.

  • Anthony Macdonald
ASX chairman Damian Roche is resisting calls for his resignation.

The ASX’s legal mess reveals deep-rooted problems in boardrooms

Court action against the ASX over its bungled CHESS replacement project reflects a worrying escalation in the box-ticking, compliance culture inside Australian boardrooms.

  • Updated
  • Tony Boyd

July

Former TPG Telecom email customers to be slugged up to $95 annually

Accounts with iiNet, Internode and Westnet addresses will start paying a yearly fee from September after they were transferred to a Norwegian-owned company.

  • Jenny Wiggins

IT outage: ‘significant’ cost to Australian economy

Australian companies and services are struggling with knock-on effects from an unprecedented global IT outage caused by a simple software update.

  • Updated
  • Savannah Meacham and Samantha Lock
Phillip Britt is the chief executive of Aussie Broadband. He wants to capture more of the broadband market with cheaper products.

Aussie Broadband discount offshoot Buddy chases lost customers

Aussie Broadband is hoping to win back some of the customers lost to rival Superloop with a new, cheap internet brand, Buddy Telco.

  • Jenny Wiggins
Advertisement
Liverpool Partners’ Brad Lancken.

Liverpool Partners hires Macquarie Capital for Seisma sale

Diligence materials on Seisma, which makes close to $25 million in earnings, are in front of a small group of offshore strategics and local sponsors.

  • Sarah Thompson, Kanika Sood and Emma Rapaport

June

‘Private AI’ surge powers Equinix’s $240m data centre expansion

The surge in AI use adds to existing drivers for data centre demand, including cloud computing and increasing consumption of streaming services and social media.

  • Nick Lenaghan
Business pay rises slow down.

Businesses hit the brakes on large pay rises

The pandemic era of inflated salary increases appears to be over as the economy slows and skills shortages ease. 

  • Euan Black

May

The 2022 cyberattack on Optus brought significant scrutiny to bear on the company’s management of personal data.

Optus loses appeal to keep Deloitte report on cyberattack secret

The decision means information in a report commissioned by Optus into the causes of its 2022 cyberattack will be given to a class action law firm.

  • Jenny Wiggins
Downer EDI chief executive Peter Tompkins.

More jobs go at Downer EDI in efficiency drive

Dozens of employees have lost their jobs in a new wave of cost-cutting including senior executives and people in the engineering group’s IT operations.

  • Jenny Wiggins

Original URL: https://www.afr.com/topic/it-networks-hqr