New ANZ telco Astrotel said it is aiming to bring a cloud and AI-native, fully virtualised networking solution to local markets via its relationship with US network-as-a- service provider Alkira. In an interview with CommsDay, CEO Elizabeth Aris highlighted the shift in the telecoms industry towards virtualisation, positioning Astrotel’s partnership with Alkira as a game-changer.
“We’re not here to replicate what everyone else has; we’re here to bring the new stuff. It’s new to APAC but certainly not new globally,” Aris said. She explained that with Alkira, businesses no longer need to rely on traditional infrastructure investments, noting that the shift to cloud-native services means reduced costs and faster deployments. “You don’t need to keep building pipes,” Aris added, referencing the traditional telco model. “Everyone who has invested billions of dollars in infrastructure, sorry, new game.”
Astrotel’s partnership with Alkira allows it to provide sales, marketing and technical support across the region, along with the capacity to deliver managed services. Although the firm has only begun actively marketing the offering in recent months, the response has been positive. Aris noted that one potential client, after seeing a demonstration, admitted, “I don’t think we have the best solution anymore.”
Astrotel launched as a dedicated business telco based in Sydney earlier this year, under the leadership of Aris, who formerly held senior positions at TPG, Telstra, and TasmaNet.
Alkira’s platform allows businesses to transfer their IP transit traffic directly onto hyperscale cloud infrastructure, which Aris believes will drastically reduce costs. “We’re talking a dramatic difference in price,” she said, pointing to the significant financial advantages the new approach offers over traditional methods of moving data across regions.
Alkira CEO Amir Khan told CommsDay that the platform differs from other NaaS providers, such as Megaport and PacketFabric. “They haven’t built the infrastructure the way we have,” Khan stated. “We started with a clean sheet of paper.”
Khan emphasised that Alkira’s infrastructure is designed to scale seamlessly, integrating directly into hyperscale cloud providers like AWS, Azure and Google Cloud Platform. “We’ve abstracted out AWS, Azure, and GCP. Our infrastructure sits inside these clouds, and we just utilise what’s publicly available,” he explained. Alkira’s offering allows users to manage multi-cloud environments more effectively, without the need for physical hardware or extensive deployment times. “You just come to our website and start building your network,” Khan added.
According to Khan, Alkira optimises routing, firewalls, and other critical networking functions without requiring additional physical resources. This optimisation has led to dramatic reductions in firewall use for some customers-down from 80 to less than 10, in some cases. “We’ve made it so easy from the Alkira perspective,” he said, stressing that the system integrates smoothly with on-premise data centres and existing networking technologies.
Khan also pointed to a broader shift in how the networking industry is evolving. “We want to have our roadmap in our full control. That’s why we only utilise what cloud providers offer to their broader set of customers, to enterprises and service providers for general consumption. But they’re spending tens of billions of dollars on building that infrastructure. Why can’t we utilise it?”
Khan compared the current state of networking to other industries that have grown by leveraging cloud infrastructure, such as streaming. “If Netflix could grow to tens of billions of dollars on top of the cloud providers, why can’t we grow the networking industry now? It’s a paradigm shift in how you think about this.”
He recalled a conversation with a major service provider, who questioned the absence of physical infrastructure. “They said, ‘But where’s your hardware?’ There is no hardware,” Khan responded.
In addition to its work with Alkira, Astrotel is also collaborating with AI software provider Canopus Networks, leveraging its advanced bandwidth optimisation technology to deliver real-time insights into customer behaviour. Aris said the software can monitor network activity and proactively allocate bandwidth, such as when detecting multiple users about to join a Zoom call. “We’re no longer stuck in the paradigm of static bandwidth allocations,” she explained. This AI-driven approach allows for dynamic, real-time adjustments, providing a significant leap in network efficiency. Aris also emphasised Astrotel’s commitment to open networking, which offers greater flexibility and cost savings, allowing customers to build and scale networks with interoperable components. Astrotel is also marketing Edgecore and NBN Enterprise Ethernet products.
Khan also revealed the origin story behind the name ‘Alkira,’ an Australian Indigenous word meaning “clear sky after the storm.” “We are interconnecting clouds, whether private or public,” Khan said, explaining how the name reflects the company’s mission. “We said, wow, what a name. So we ended up picking it.” The name symbolises Alkira’s role in simplifying the complex multi-cloud environments businesses face today.
About Alkira
Alkira is the leader in Network Infrastructure on Demand. We unify any environments, sites, and users via an enterprise network built entirely in the cloud. The network is managed using the same controls, policies, and security systems network administrators know, is available as a service, and can instantly scale as needed. There is no new hardware to deploy, no software to download, and no architecture to learn. Alkira’s solution is trusted by Fortune 100 enterprises, leading system integrators, and global managed service providers. Learn more at alkira.com and follow us @alkiranet.