E-boxes help to spread broadband

By RICHARD WOOD

Nelson company e-services has developed a "broadband market exchange" to deliver high speed internet, no matter what the underlying technologies, and no matter who is the internet service provider.

The exchange uss intelligent "e-boxes" at the user end which handle billing information, applications, and selection of additional services such as antivirus, file backup, and bandwidth on demand.

Customer contracts are set up electronically at the exchange in Nelson, where a reconciliation settlement billing system tracks every transaction and sends a consolidated account to customers.

The company is working with power network businesses and independent wireless network operators throughout New Zealand to spread the use of the system, especially on up-and-coming wireless broadband networks.

It can also be used across fixed lines.

The e-boxes are into their third generation of design and include memory and hard disk.

They were being manufactured to requirements in Europe, but since October last year have been manufactured in Nelson.

The cost of the boxes is around $1000, recovered from users over five years.

Asked about customer number, director Barrie Leay would only say there were "hundreds" at present. Patents for the system have been filed internationally and Leay sees export potential.



He says the service meets standards laid down by the Open Systems Gateway Initiative (www.osgi.org) and frees the customer from reliance on any one internet service provider (ISP). New areas the e-box will be applied to are virtual private networks, voice over IP (internet protocol), video on demand, and storage of video and television.

The e-services system has been developing "organically" since mid-2000 and is based on concepts used in the M-Co electricity marketplace which Leay and a number of his colleagues were originally involved in.

Leay founded e-services three years ago with Robert Huitema, who previously worked with Sun Microsystems. It has since gained a number of private investors.

"The difference is that in electricity you finally buy electrons from only one retailer. In digital broadband communications you can buy services from many suppliers simultaneously. You can have an ISP, a telecommunications company, etc. "

E-services is providing its broadband market service mostly in the South Island. It is available in parts of the North Island but not in Auckland."We went to the most remote places to ensure it would work there and worked back from that," Leay said.