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In a big win for the Perth-based communications platforms provider, the Optus system will be replaced with Norwood’s CogVoice. Norwood today told the market CogVoice would deliver “enhanced functionality and user experience.”

A Proof of Concept was carried out with Optus late in 2023 and the contract is now going ahead through the Group Master Supply Agreement with Singtel Group.

The five-year $2.98m contract covers progress payments for platform license fees, professional services, support, maintenance, and migration costs.

There’ll be the potential for Norwood to provide additional premium voicemail services to Optus, which are not included in the current scope, and which would be the subject of a further supply contract.

This contract aligns with Norwood’s strategic objective to expand its global partnerships with tier-one Communication Service Providers.

Norwood says its CogVoice platform has been “engineered for seamless low-cost deployment, unmatched latency, and full 4G/5G compatibility,” and “provides an ideal foundation for rolling out next-generation telco AI voice applications.”

Norwood CEO and Founder Paul Ostergaard said the contract represented a milestone for the company. “We’re thrilled to be supporting Optus on this voicemail refresh project,” he said in the company’s market release.

“This contract with Optus marks a significant step for Norwood Systems as a supplier to the telecommunications infrastructure market, reaffirming Norwood’s position as an internationally competitive vendor in the CSP sector.

“Our CogVoice platform will replace Optus’ legacy voicemail system, introducing AI-driven capabilities and improved operational efficiencies.

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“This five-year voicemail contract not only validates our technology but will also provide Optus with a solid foundation for modernised call completion services.

“We’re committed to ensuring a smooth transition for Optus and their subscribers while exploring how our AI-powered solutions can further enhance their network operations and customer offerings in the future.”

Norwood last sold at 2cps through Tuesday morning trade.

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The two have been collaborating since 2021 on AT&T’s FirstNet project; described as the largest mission-critical push-to-talk project in the world.

CEO David Deacon said the deal reflected Etherstack’s reputation and growth.

“This direct award with AT&T for one of our innovative products in a rapidly evolving public communications product area is testament to Etherstack’s capability in building the best products for the world’s largest telco operators and switch vendors,” he said.

“We look forward to updating our shareholders in the near future with further good news.”

At the same time, Etherstack confirmed a repeat contract for the provision of Etherstack digital radio technology for a mine site in Western Australia.

This contract – valued at A$519,000 (or US$327,000) – was for Radlink Communications, a Western Australia-based systems integrator and a long-term Etherstack customer.

Additionally, it was the eighth Etherstack contract to provide services for a mine site run by the same iron ore producer – the world’s largest.

Etherstack last traded at 31cps after its 12.73% value jump.

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The deal – expected to net more than $400 million in annual revenue for Ventia – will involve honing the delivery of design, construction, and maintenance of infrastructure, including lifecycle management across Australia and fixed network services for Telstra’s digital infrastructure facilities.

Additionally, Ventia will be involved in the designing and construction of asset relocation and commercial works, as well as the continuation of some services related to network design and construction.

Wideband, optical fibre, data, IP networks, and wireless plans are all included in the deal.

Ventia CEO and Managing Director, Dean Banks, said the deal would build on an already strong business relationship with the telecommunications giant.

“We are proud to have been a trusted partner to Telstra for nearly 30 years and we are excited to expand our partnership to support their strategic goals,” he said.

Existing contracts between the two companies are set to expire in December, and works under the new contract will begin in early 2025.

Ventia has been trading at $3.45.

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The move shapes as a direct revenue-raiser for the larger Market Limited brand (under which this publication also sits), given it will likely take a small fee from each and every transaction made using the payments on Australia’s largest classifieds website. Other Adyen-linked platforms like eBay and Uber take similar fees.

Right now, users can see the requested price for a product then get in touch with whoever created the ad. All payment negotiations and methods are handed elsewhere.

But not anymore. The new functionality is slated for an early December launch – and it will extend to Google and Apple Pay, too.

While management noted the benefits of having an easier way to purchase – “streamlined” – it was also framed as a safer way of doing business.

“The ability to transact safely online is top of mind for everyone and this partnership will give users greater confidence when it comes to buying and selling on Gumtree,” Market Limited Group CEO Tommy Logtenberg said.

“Our users can look forward to a fast and streamlined payment experience.

“This partnership is another example of how we are investing heavily in improving user experience and providing a safe platform for our customers. From the commencement of our integration with Adyen, all major bank cards, as well as Apple Pay and Google Pay will be supported.”

MKT last traded at 16.5cps.

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Based on Thursday’s closing price, that puts the deal at $18.09M. Swoop shares closed at 19.5cps at close on Thursday; Vonex at 4.1cps.

Swoop offered one fully paid Swoop ordinary share for every 4.2 Vonex shares with the implied price a “178% premium to the closing price of Vonex shares of 1.8 cents on 24 June 2024,” and a premium of 22% to the closing price on October 17.

Swoop already owns 19.9% of Vonex; that sacred number which companies acquire right before they’re forced to make a takeover offer by law.

That holding has allowed Swoop, in its eyes, to outmanoeuvre privately held MaxoTel, which has been trying to acquire Vonex since June. After months of back and forth, Swoop has now raised its implied price to 5cps. That marks a lift from 4.2cps.

“Due to the voting power in Vonex held by Swoop and the fact MaxoTel… are not permitted to vote on the MaxoTel Scheme, the MaxoTel Scheme is unlikely to be approved at the upcoming meeting on 23 October 2024,” Swoop wrote on Friday.

Swoop management has suggested their offer allows Vonex shareholders to retain exposure to the business (via SWP). The company guided Vonex shareholders to reject the MaxoTel deal.

Swoop ultimately wants Vonex to cross-sell services across an enlarged customer base, and to “unlock significant synergies at scale.” The company didn’t explain what that actually means in its announcement on Friday.

SWP last traded at 19.5cps.

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Case in point: it owns the two largest online investment communities in Australia and Canada.

In fact: its well-known Australian forum, HotCopper – through being a centralised hub for Australian traders to discuss their investments, and company announcements – regularly helps to make or break mining juniors. 

In this way, HotCopper shapes our local share market. The same is true for its counterpart Canadian offering, Stockhouse. 

And HotCopper, it can’t be ignored, is miles ahead of all competition. 

In fact, it’s ahead of multiple competitors combined.

Quick disclaimer here: I write for HotCopper, but I thought it was about time I looked closely at the company that pays my bills.

And this is what first caught my attention when I took the job.

Get this: according to data from web analytics company Similarweb pulled in late September, HotCopper clocks in 7.015M monthly visits. 

Nationally recognised finance media brand Stockhead, meanwhile, only pulls in 281.4K visits per the Similarweb analysis this finance journalist has seen. 

And that’s just visits. When it comes to page views, HotCopper is currently raking in 43.09M views ­– driven in large part by its collaborative chat-forum design.

Stockhead, not to be too disparaging, only pulls in 501K per month. 

The Market’s Capital Markets division owns HotCopper, Stockhouse (HotCopper’s equivalent in Canada), The Market Online (formerly known as The Market Herald) and The Market Link, which is the investor relations operator.

But The Market offers far more than stock market forums and services.

The Market Ltd’s truly a diversified communications company – you may or may not know that it owns Australian e-classifieds success story Gumtree.  The Market also owns Carsguide & Autotrader – together, these three entities form the Gumtree Group arm of the business.

Let’s take a look at each of the brands that make up Gumtree Group. 

Gumtree Group, as all three companies put together, collectively see more than 5M unique users interact each month – that means 20 per cent of the Australian population visits its three sites on a monthly basis. 

Last financial year, the classifieds website Gumtree alone received over 350M page views per month. Like MKT’s capital markets division, Gumtree Group clearly boasts some of Australia’s most high-traffic websites, period.

According to The Market’s most recent annual report, Gumtree’s annual listed Gross Merchandise Value (GMV) equalled an eye-catching A$30B. Key categories of cars, jobs, pets, home & garden and real estate attained some 2M listings.

As technology evolves, so the nature of Gumtree Group is changing.

Over the past year Gumtree launched its first transactional offerings with the roll-out of an Instant Cash Offer product and a Car Inspection service. 

The Market’s CEO Tommy Logtenberg promises additional transactional products are on the cards – with launches in coming months with a focus on payments and shipping.

“This will provide us with a sound monetisation opportunity and further strengthens our trust and safety capabilities,” Mr Logtenberg said.

Vehicle sales are an important component of the overall brand. Over 2,500 car dealers nationally use Gumtree Group – Gumtree itself, as well as Carsguide and Autotrader – to market their products to the Australian populace at large. 

Carsguide ranked the #1 website in Australia per Nielsen ratings (Jan-August 2024) for automotive editorial, which combines listings, advice, reviews and auto news. 

Monthly page views amount to 18M for Carsguide alone. 

And Gumtree Group’s activities in the real estate sector are also on an upward trajectory.

Gumtree recently announced a partnership with the Homely Group in its real estate category, which is anticipated to go live in November 2024. 

“Through this partnership, the total number of real estate listings on Gumtree across both for sale and rentals will grow significantly, from nearly 11,000 to around 200,000 nationwide,” Mr Logtenberg said.

Given this impressive portfolio of online brands – and the untouchable superiority of HotCopper as a magnet for finance-media-hungry web traffic – it’s perhaps surprising, then, that the stock remains highly illiquid. It’s tightly held.

But with RBA rate cuts on the relatively immediate horizon and a slowly recovering US IPO market – the megatrend of private equity be damned – are investors missing a good opportunity while shares are cheap?

Of all the sectors on the ASX, Telecommunications –  which includes media companies – is one of the most esoteric.

You already know the big market cap names – mainly Telstra – but I’m willing to bet aside from one or two little darlings, you can’t name many others. 

But it’s well worth recognising the sector is far more than a national phone service provider and a few TV stations.  

It’s a rich and often overlooked segment of the Australian share market’s overall composition – at least compared to mining, property, healthcare and finance – which is perhaps strange given it’s one of the most important sectors for Australian society.

Or any society. Consider this. 

Our national broadcasters sway public opinions and help to evolve the current political mood(s) of our time. 

Telstra, meanwhile, connects vast swathes of the country – in many cases, providing the infrastructure required for that media to be broadcast onto phones. 

Telecomms matters – but, from time to time, it can feel like many share market traders overlook the sector in favour of sectors that might come more obviously to the forefront of the mind, given we’re a country of ore and expensive houses. 

But in that binary way of thinking, there’s possibly a lot of potential value that could be missed.   

The material provided in this article is for information only and should not be treated as investment advice. Viewers are encouraged to conduct their own research and consult with a certified financial advisor before making any investment decisions. For full disclaimer information, please click here.

The conglomerate often known as Soul Patts – which also runs TPG Telecom and Pengana Capital – said its total dividend for FY2024 was up 9.2% at 95cps (cents per share), from 87 cps in the prior corresponding period.

Managing director and CEO Todd Barlow said the company had successfully ticked off three key goals: increasing cash generation, growing its portfolio and managing investment risk, during FY2024.

“Our strategy of long-term commitment to building value, strength in conviction when making investment decisions, and unconstrained mandate to invest where we can extract the highest quality returns, continues to deliver for our shareholders,” he said.

Soul Patts’ net cash flow was up 10.3% to $468 million, as a result of growing cash generation from private equity, emerging companies and credit portfolios within the conglomerate’s umbrella.

Meanwhile, Brickworks Ltd (ASX:BKW) said its statutory profit in the 2024 fiscal year had slumped 130% to a loss of $119 million, mainly influenced by property sales and non-cash property revaluations, with these registering a loss of $231 million during the year.

Also significant was the impact of non-cash building products, which fell by $135 million (post-tax) during FY2024.

The company’s full year dividend was 67 cents fully franked, up 3%.

Chairman Robert Milner said economic headwinds around the world were having an impact on Brickworks’ bottom line.

“The significant property devaluation was reported in the first half, and reflects capitalisation rate expansion across the industry, in response to higher interest rates,” he said.

“Pleasingly, conditions have stabilised across the property industry over the past six months, as many central banks around the world begin to pivot towards expansionary monetary policy.

“The Building Products impairment was recorded in the second half, and primarily relates to Austral Masonry and Brickworks North America. Both of these businesses have been impacted over the past six months by a deterioration in building activity across key markets.”

It appears that Brickworks’ results were not as problematic to investors as they appeared on the surface, with the company’s stock rising on Thursday. At 13:45 AEST, Brickworks shares were trading at $28.61 – a rise of 7.56% since the market opened, while Washington H Soul Pattinson & Company was $34.20 – a rise of 0.68%.

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The company made an offer for Vonex at 4cps only days ago, around two months after MaxoTel put in a $34M offer on the company. Vonex shares closed on Tuesday at 4.1cps; it has a market cap of $14M.

When Swoop made that offer at Vonex earlier this month, Vonex had a share price of 3.75cps. The former expects to grow earnings before costs by $5M per year if it was able to snatch all of the company.

Early outlook combined revenues would be just short of $140M in that universe, Swoop calculated. Vonex, for its part, told its shareholders to go with MaxoTel instead.

“The Vonex Board does not consider the Swoop offer to be superior to [MaxoTel] … Vonex’s board continues to recommend shareholders vote in favour of the arrangement with MaxoTel,” Vonex wrote last Friday.

Maxo Telecommunications is a privately held Australian telco company on something of an acquisition spurt of late. It acquired an NZ asset, Zintel Ltd, as well as a Fonebox Contact Centre from Aussie Broadband (ASX:ABB) back in February of 2023.

Then it June, it made Vonex an offer.

But Swoop Holdings doesn’t intend to let that deal through – made clear in its announcement on Wednesday – clearly preferring its own vision for the company. That could have merit: non-exec Deputy Chair Tony Grist previously co-founded and chaired Amcom Telecommunications, leading a merger with Vocus.

Amcom would then become iiNet’s largest shareholder.

“Swoop continues to believe its proposal stands to create significant value for both Vonex and Swoop shareholders and represents superior value to the MaxoTel Scheme,” Swoop wrote.

“Swoop does not support the MaxoTel Scheme and currently does not intend to vote its Vonex stake in favour of it.”

Swoop has also approached its financier Westpac for, in layman’s terms, a loan to fund the acquisition of Vonex.

SWP last traded at 23cps; VN8 at 4.1cps.

Under the deal, Optus will use TPG’s spectrum to supply mobile services; in turn, Optus will provide network services to TPG. The deal is unlikely to bother anybody living in the regions where phone reception is a long-time have or have-not.

The regulator ultimately decided that any sharing of this nature was unlikely to lessen competition in regional areas or otherwise.

In fact – the regulator sees a net win for Australians actually living in those outback areas.

“The ACCC carefully considered the arrangement proposed by Optus and TPG, as it represents a structural change to the mobile services landscape,” ACCC Commissioner Dr Philip Williams said.

“The agreements will allow TPG to provide better coverage in regional areas, which will likely enhance its ability to compete during the term of the agreements, improving choice for regional consumers.”

That can’t really be understated.

This financial journalist was in WA’s southwest only the weekend just past and was bemused to find that his Vodafone coverage appeared to be affected by heavy cloud.

Complaints about Telstra – extremely common, anecdotally – vary from town to town. Williams also added the deal is likely to assist Optus expand its regional 5G network rollout.

“The competition impacts of the agreements are likely to be limited to geographic areas where TPG is not currently a significant competitor and is unlikely to become one in the future,” the ACCC wrote on Thursday.

“TPG currently has significantly less infrastructure and coverage in regional areas compared to Telstra and to a lesser extent Optus. The improvement in TPG’s services during the term of this arrangement is likely to be greater than what TPG could have achieved on its own,” Williams further noted.

The ACCC added it will continue to monitor this structural change in the mobile services landscape.

SKS announced back in July that it had secured a $90 million contract to build the data centre, which is located in Melbourne’s western suburbs.

The extension relates to all aspects of fit out for the centre, including electrical fit out of office and administration areas, installation and testing of equipment, whip cabling work to connect the main power supply to electrical equipment, and all work related to submains, cable support systems and general power and communication cabling.

The company said the awarding of this project was indicative of its desire to gain a name in the profitable data centre market in Australia – with the development of such infrastructure set to reach a value of $7.7 billion by 2029, and SKS has already secured a total of $170 million in combined work in this sector since FY22.

Chief Executive Officer, Matthew Jinks, said the company was seeking to continue building its profile in this space.

“In a relatively short time, SKS Technologies has won and delivered a number of large data centre project works, generating a reputation as a preferred supplier of electrical and communications solutions to the major companies developing data centre infrastructure in Australia,” he said.

“While the business achieved an exceptional operational performance and record financial results in FY24, the Board and management remain focused on the excellent execution of every project, be it large or small, consolidating the operating framework to appropriately support the new levels of contract wins and delivery.

“With the exemplary FY24 financial results, the Board remains comfortable that the currentworking capital position can continue to support the current activity of the business.”

Shares in SKS have risen on the news, and at 11:30 AEST, they were trading at $1.50 – a rise of 7.94% since the market opened.

In its full year financial report to the market, the telco giant said NPAT (net profit after tax) had come in at $1.8 billion in the year to June 30, 2024 – this registering a 12.8% drop from the same time last year.

For the same period, EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization) came in at $7.5 billion – a 4.2% fall compared to the 2023 financial year.

The company witnessed income growth in six of its seven major sectors throughout the year: Telstra Consumer, Telstra Business, Telstra International, Telstra Infra Co, Networks IT and Product, and All Other.

However, earnings in the Telstra Enterprise Australia fell by 2.2% to $4,586 million for the period, including a 0.6% fall in mobile income and 2.8% drop in Fixed-Enterprise income across DAC (data and connectivity) and NAS (network and services).

Growth in income from mobile phone services was also evident throughout the year – rising 4.3% and contributing to Telstra Consumer sector’s overall growth of 2.3% (to $10,722 million). However, growth in this sector was also offset by a fall of 1.7 per cent in Fixed – C&SB (consumer and small business) income.

CEO Vicki Brady responded positively to the results, saying they revealed a third consecutive year of underlying growth and key indicators on-target.

“Our mobiles business has continued to perform very strongly, with EBITDA growth of over $400 million,” she said.

“This growth was driven by more people choosing our network, with more than 560,000 net new handheld customers, along with ARPU growth. Mobile services revenue grew by 5.6 per cent and our mobile business underpinned our overall underlying earnings growth.

“Our infrastructure business also grew, reflecting ongoing demand for our assets. InfraCo Fixed and Amplitel EBITDA grew by around $150 million in aggregate, further strengthening our confidence in our infrastructure growth ambitions.

“Our intercity fibre network is an investment in Australia’s future growth, connectivity, and digital prosperity.”

However, she added that increased spending on the Enterprise sector had dragged earnings down.

“While most parts of our business performed strongly, Fixed Enterprise is clearly a long way from where we need it to be,” she said.

“We commenced action during the year to address challenges in our Enterprise business, and took additional action on cost overall.

“These necessary choices and decisions in Enterprise, together with our additional action on cost, mean we are confident in achieving our $350 million cost reduction ambition by the end of FY25.”

Telstra Group was trading at $3.87.

The move is aimed at reducing Aussie Broadband’s voting power in Superloop to below 12% within 10 days.

Aussie Broadband recently acquired 19.9% of Superloop’s voting power without prior approval from Info-communications Media Development Authority (IMDA) in Singapore, as required.

Upon being informed of Aussie Broadband’s acquisition, Superloop contacted Aussie Broadband, expressing concern over the breach of its constitution. Aussie Broadband has acknowledged its non-compliance.

Superloop’s constitution prohibits acquisitions surpassing 12% without necessary statutory approval from IMDA in Singapore.

Despite attempts by Aussie Broadband’s legal team to downplay the breach as “inadvertent,” Superloop remains committed to upholding legal obligations, to prevent jeopardising its statutory license in Singapore.

Superloop has acknowledged that without IMDA approval, Aussie Broadband cannot increase its voting power in Superloop, approval can only be granted if IMDA determines that Aussie Broadband “was not aware” of the contravention.

SLC last traded at $1.18, at 11:45 am AEDT.

ABB share price has also fallen 2.5% last traded at $3.46, at 11:45 am AEDT.

The deal values Symbio at $3.01 per share, based on Aussie Broadband’s closing price on October 31, 2023.

The Symbio board has unanimously recommended that shareholders vote in favour of the Scheme, provided there is no superior proposal.

The scheme is subject to customary conditions, including approval by Symbio shareholders at the scheme meeting.

The acquisition is expected to be EPS-accretive in the first full financial year after completion, before synergies. It will also provide Symbio shareholders with options for their consideration and an attractive premium over the trading price.

The scheme is expected to be implemented in February 2024.

The acquisition is expected to accelerate Aussie Broadband’s growth, create new opportunities, increase scale, strengthen financials, and provide access to new capabilities.

Aussie Broadband last traded at $3.92.

The company attributed its gains to off-net service price increases, which bolstered off-net recurring revenue by 25 per cent YoY – as well as an increase in on-net subscription revenue, lifting by 10 per cent YoY.

Meanwhile, Pentanet posted a 15 per cent rise in gross profit to $8.5 million for FY23.

5GG Managing Director Stephen Cornish said FY23 posed challenges for the company, despite registering double-digit growth in both revenue and gross profit.

“June 2023 marked a substantial milestone for the company as we achieved EBITDA breakeven across both telecommunications and cloud gaming independently for the first time,” he said.

“The telecommunications business is now in the best position it has ever been, reaching operating breakeven in the lead up to significant additional capacity turning on to drive new subscriber growth in H1 FY24.”

Also during FY23, the company saw the deployment of its fourth 5G enabled tower, with another four planned in FY24.

Pentanet’s cloud gaming revenue was up 125 per cent YoY.

“We are also incredibly proud of bringing a world-leading cloud gaming platform technology to Australia and have grown that business to where it can already cover costs whilst still having a significant amount of additional capacity for paid user growth,” Mr Cornish said.

Cornish added that the company was positioned to “significantly” accelerate growth in FY24.

At the end of Q4 FY23, Pentanet held a cash balance of $9.9 million.

Shares in 5GG were up 17.2 per cent, trading at 9.5 cents at 3:03 pm AEST.

Representatives from Australia, the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM), Japan, Kiribati, Nauru and the United States met as part of the biannual Project Executive Board meeting.

The East Micronesia Cable project aims to give more than 100,000 people across the Pacific faster, more reliable, more secure and higher-quality internet.

It involves building a submarine cable connecting the state of Kosrae in the FSM, Tarawa in Kiribati, and Nauru to the existing HANTRU-1 cable in Pohnpei, FSM.

During the meeting on Wednesday, the representatives reaffirmed their commitment to delivering the “transformational” project and spoke about the steps required to complete the cable construction.

The Australian Infrastructure Financing Facility for the Pacific (AIFFP) said the collaborative efforts by the involved nations highlighted the commitment towards maximising the region’s stability, security and prosperity to support long-term social and economic growth.

The new cable aims to support the increased availability of digital government services and improve trade and employment opportunities through better access to services, information and worldwide markets.

The AIFFP said it would support economic growth and improve living standards as the region continued in its recovery from the COVID pandemic.

While internet access in FSM, Kiribati and Nauru is available via satellite connectivity, the capacity, speed, cost and reliability fall well below the countries’ needs and thus limit opportunities for their residents.

The East Micronesia Cable project vies to bring the Micronesian region closer together, as well as closer to the rest of the world.

While it might be obvious that when compared to the United States, the FSM is massively lagging behind in terms of its development of telecommunications, the figures are damning.

According to WorldData, only around 35 per cent of all residents in FSM have access to the internet.

Kiribati is one of the most isolated countries in the world, but just 38 per cent of its residents have access to the internet.

In Naruru, around 57 per cent of all residents have access to the internet.

As for the United States, 92 per cent of the total population uses the internet as of 2022, according to DataReportal.

Australia, the United States and Japan aren’t trying to bring internet usage in the Pacific nations to their levels, but are instead aiming to support long-term social and economic growth in some of the most isolated countries in the world.

The representatives of the six nations will conclude their visit to Australia with a tour of a Cable Landing Station in Sydney.

Cable Landing Stations (CLS) are pivotal to communications infrastructure around the world. The demand for communication and entertainment is underpinned by more than a million kilometres of undersea cable that connects every continent across the globe.

Representatives from the six nations will look at the operational infrastructure and technology that they hope to be implemented in the countries as part of the project to bolster connectivity for the Pacific nations with the rest of the globe.

Beam was chosen as the original equipment manufacturer (OEM) for the development of the new portable satellite hotspot, aiming to make life easier for professionals through a more reliable connection.

Beam Communications Managing Director Michael Capocchi said it was pleasing to be chosen as Iridium’s OEM partner once again.

“We are pleased to have Iridium select Beam Communications as the OEM partner once again, this time for the Iridium GO! exec,” Mr Capocchi said.

“With the company achieving strong historic sales for the Iridium GO! product, we are very excited about the opportunities this product brings to the broader target market.”

The Iridium GO! exec offers 40 times faster download and 10 times faster upload speeds than the original Iridium GO!, launched in 2014.

The technology connects to smartphones, tablets and laptops through a Wi-Fi connection and also supports high-quality voice calling, data services, SOS, and social media, office, chat apps and more through an IP connection.

The partners have received orders for a total of 67,500 Iridium GO! units, marking a significant increase on the initial minimum order commitment of 5,000.

Beam said that based on the early demand and historically strong sales reputation of Iridium GO!, the company expects orders for the product to exceed the initial $20 million minimum commitment from Iridium.

The company said the Iridium GO! exec will be classified as a premium solution in the Iridium GO! product range, while the original Iridium GO! will remain as a part of the brand’s product suite and will continue to be offered alongside the latest product.

Shares in Beam Communications were up 4 per cent and trading at 26 cents at midday AEDT.

This will allow the introduction of next-gen RTX 3080 hardware and higher tier plans in Australia from 2023.

Additionally, New Zealand will now be formally recognised as a Pentanet serviceable territory opening up a pathway to additional neighbouring territories.

The RTX 3080 are a family of computer graphics cards that promises to deliver the “ultra performance that gamers crave” using NVIDIA’s second generation RTX architecture.

The company also confirmed its continued investment in the next-generation cloud gaming infrastructure by purchasing the RTX 3080 SuperPODs funded by its five-year Westpac loan facilities.

“NVIDIA chose Pentanet to bring GeForce NOW to Australia due to the company’s passion for gaming and delivering a high-quality cloud gaming experience,” Managing Director Stephen Cornish said.

“When we first launched GeForce NOW Powered by Pentanet in Australia, we were setting out to prove that a high bandwidth, latency-sensitive application could run on Australia’s internet,” Mr Cornish said.

“With hundreds of thousands of members and a steady growth rate each month, we’ve demonstrated that not only is cloud gaming achievable, but there’s a growing appetitefor it into the future.”

Set to launch in 2023, the RTX 3080 membership gives users access to a dedicated 3080 GPU in the cloud.

This will provide a significant performance boost over the existing GeForce NOW subscription tier and further access to more of the cloud gaming market.

Shares in Pentanet were up 8.77 per cent, trading at 31 cents as of 3:40 pm AEDT.

VostroNet is an end-to-end internet infrastructure and software provider who delivers high speed fibe to the premises (FTTP) and WiFi for multi-dwelling units and broadacre developments.

Its customers include the Queensland University of Technology, Sunshine Coast Council, UniLodge, CBUS, Iglu Student Accommodation and Consolidated Properties.

The consideration consists of $24.5 million in cash and $10.5 million in Superloop shares, funded from the company’s existing cash reserves.

Subject to meeting certain take-up targets, the vendors may also receive earn-out payments of up to $15 million in cash.

“I look forward to working collectively to further strengthen our position in the provision of on net broadband services to the student accommodation, multi dwelling units and FTTP markets,” SLC Managing Director and CEO Paul Tyler said.

“As a challenger in the industry, Superloop is committed to doing more to improve the overall customer experience.

“We know the value and importance of connectivity and we see a real opportunity to support those in multi-dwelling communities.”

On a FY23 full-year pro forma basis, the acquisition will reportedly contribute roughly $4.6 million in earnings before interests, taxes, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA), before synergies.

Where the earnout is fully achieved, the resulting EBITDA multiple is expected to be around 7.5 times.

Shares in Superloop were up 4 per cent, trading at 78 cents as of 2:40 pm AEDT.

Cash receipts increased 42 per cent on the June quarter to $9.5 million, while operating cash costs increased to $20 million.

As of September 30, Dubber had $73.87 million in total available funding, representing 7.2 quarters of use if spending levels remain the same.

In the quarter, Dubber reached an agreement with Ziggo, the operating brand of Vodafone Netherlands, for the supply of its services for its Unified Communication networks.

Agreements were also reached with major UK service provider 3, and Microsoft Teams calling service provider NTS.

“During the quarter, we finalised the development of the core range of AI-driven services based on Dubber Notes. The services will include entry level versions of Dubber Notes and can be embedded as a standard feature into the offerings of our Service Provider partners on a Foundation basis,” CEO and Managing Director Steve McGovern said.

“The company is also focussing on strengthening its accounting and finance capability in line with the growth of the operating business as a whole.

Dubber said it’s also consolidating relationships and offerings with highly regarded services providers across Australia, the UK and North America.

Shares in Dubber were down 2.86 per cent and trading at 34 cents at 1:55 pm AEDT.