Announcing: The iTnews Fibre breakfast

Today I am excited to announce that I will be hosting three of the kingpins of connectivity for a panel session at the Australian Data Centre Strategy Summit on the Gold Coast.

The ‘iTnews Fibre Breakfast’, features serial entrepreneurs Bevan Slattery, CEO of MegaPort, James Spenceley, founder and CEO of Vocus and Skeeve Stevens, founder and CEO of eintellego networks.

The topic for discussion? Why you, as a buyer, are in the drivers seat when it comes to inter-data centre connectivity.

Market disruption and new competition has enabled a range of new network interconnection products for IT and facilities managers to consider.

According to analyst group Market Clarity, the median dollar per kilometre price of point-to-point connections for distances up to 5km has dropped by 32 percent over the past two years.

“I've been seeing pricing heat up in larger markets such as Sydney where there are more competitive players,” said Market Clarity CEO Shara Evans. “In particular, connections to aata centres attract really good rates.”

Our three panellists have each established highly disruptive businesses in the networking world.

Bevan Slattery founded PIPE Networks – a provider of both metro dark fibre capacity and international submarine cables – which was sold to TPG for $373 million. He later founded national data centre network NextDC, which has built co-lo facilities across Australia’s capital cities, before again stepping aside to focus on a new business, Megaport, a business that aims to provide new approaches to shared connectivity between data centres and carrier networks.

James Spenceley rolled out one of Australia's first independent wholesale data networks (COMindico), providing international connectivity to challenger ISPs. He went on to launch one of Australia's largest data centre and fibre connectivity networks with Vocus.

Skeeve Stevens is a network architect, CEO, author and speaker that has built several businesses around disruptive innovations in networking technology.  Stevens has served on the boards of APNIC and the Internet Society of Australia, and established eintellego networks to design network solutions for ISPs and corporates.

Stay tuned for the complete agenda for the Australian Data Centre Strategy Summit later this week.