Cash pipeline bright for Pipe

Independent carrier Pipe Networks has met expectations for the 2009 fiscal year, booking a 46 percent rise to $10.5 million consolidated profit after tax on $50.4 million revenue.

It was Pipe's fifth consecutive year of growth.

Pipe Networks operated the 1300 kilometre Sydney to Guam submarine cable that was lit up for testing at the weekend and operated peering exchanges for ISPs.

The PPC-1 cable was scheduled for activation October 8 and will be the "catalyst for a major positive change required in the competitive landscape in the Australian market for international transmission", Pipe said in a statement accompanying its results.

Chief executive officer Bevan Slattery attributed the result to growing demand, long-term contracts, high-growth assets and customer service.

Shareholder returns through smart management of cash flow were its No. 1 priority, even while building infrastructure, he said.

"The network has been designed to meet the highest standards and provide Pipe services to as many strategic IT infrastructure locations as possible," Mr Slattery said. "Our key focus is to provide on-net services to ISPs, corporate and government customers and reap the benefit from our existing robust networks."

Pipe customers included Australian ISPs such as iiNet, Internode, Netspace, Soul, TPG and Primus, Queensland and NSW state governments and corporates such as Fujitsu, ABN Amro and Macquarie.

It provided services such as PipeEthernet, a metropolitan Ethernet product that delivered speeds 10 Mbps to 10 Gbps for cloud services and disaster recovery, PipeIP and PipeCloud that linked Pipe customers without traversing the internet to break bandwidth bottlenecks.