Primus Telecommunications Pty Ltd. is an Australian

telecommunications Telecommunication, often used in its plural form or abbreviated as telecom, is the transmission of information over a distance using electronic means, typically through cables, radio waves, or other communication technologies. These means of ...

company and wholly owned subsidiary of Vocus Communications that primarily focuses on fixed, mobile, and

broadband In telecommunications, broadband or high speed is the wide-bandwidth (signal processing), bandwidth data transmission that exploits signals at a wide spread of frequencies or several different simultaneous frequencies, and is used in fast Inter ...

services. Primus Telecom was the first telecommunications carrier to receive a licence when full deregulation and competition was introduced in Australia in 1997 and has network facilities across Australia. Primus operates its own fibre network in the five major capital cities;

Sydney Sydney is the capital city of the States and territories of Australia, state of New South Wales and the List of cities in Australia by population, most populous city in Australia. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Syd ...

Melbourne Melbourne ( , ; Boonwurrung language, Boonwurrung/ or ) is the List of Australian capital cities, capital and List of cities in Australia by population, most populous city of the States and territories of Australia, Australian state of Victori ...

Brisbane Brisbane ( ; ) is the List of Australian capital cities, capital and largest city of the States and territories of Australia, state of Queensland and the list of cities in Australia by population, third-most populous city in Australia, with a ...

Adelaide Adelaide ( , ; ) is the list of Australian capital cities, capital and most populous city of South Australia, as well as the list of cities in Australia by population, fifth-most populous city in Australia. The name "Adelaide" may refer to ei ...

and

Perth Perth () is the list of Australian capital cities, capital city of Western Australia. It is the list of cities in Australia by population, fourth-most-populous city in Australia, with a population of over 2.3 million within Greater Perth . The ...

. Primus is a participant in the controversial

Internet censorship Internet censorship is the legal control or suppression of what can be accessed, published, or viewed on the Internet. Censorship is most often applied to specific internet domains (such as ''Wikipedia.org'', for example) but exceptionally may ...

trials.

History

Market entry (1997–1999)

Primus originally entered the Australian telecommunications market in 1996 by acquiring Australia's fourth-largest telecommunications service provider, Axicorp. Primus Telecom was one of the first carriers to be granted a telecommunications licence in 1997. Prior to this, Australia's telecommunications industry was operated as a duopoly⠀ between the former Australian Government-owned Telecom Australia, later rebranded

Telstra Telstra Group Limited is an Australian telecommunications company that builds and operates telecommunications networks and markets related products and services. It is a member of the S&P/ASX 20 stock index, and is Australia's largest telecomm ...

and Optus, before the market was opened to full competition in July 1997. 1998 saw Primus expand their operations further in Australia with the acquisition of Eclipse Telecommunications Pty. Ltd. and Hotkey Internet Services Pty Limited. In 1999 Primus' parent company Primus Telecommunications Inc. purchased the retail operations of Telegroup Inc., a long-distance telephone company based in

Fairfield, Iowa Fairfield is a city in, and the county seat of, Jefferson County, Iowa, United States. It has a population of 9,416 people, according to the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. The median family income is $46,138, with 10% of families belo ...

, which was in

Chapter 11 bankruptcy Chapter 11 of the United States Bankruptcy Code ( Title 11 of the United States Code) permits reorganization under the bankruptcy laws of the United States. Such reorganization, known as Chapter 11 bankruptcy, is available to every business, w ...

. This acquisition included the Australian subsidiary of Telegroup which allowed Primus to improve their capabilities in the Australian market. 1999 was also the year Primus Australia's U.S. parent company launched the iPrimus brand to spearhead the organisation's strategy of aggressively gaining retail market share by offering 'one-stop' shopping for bundled voice, data, Internet and cellular services.

Primus' growth (2000–2003)

During the period from 2000–2003, Primus achieved some significant growth. They were one of many telco providers to benefit from the collapse of One. Tel by actively pursuing those customers left in a lurch. They used this inertia to grow their customer base to approximately 750,000 retail customers including over 400,000 Internet customers by 2003.

Industry consolidation (2004–2008)

In February 2004, AOL, 7 was purchased by Primus Telecom. This acquisition added approximately 90,000 customers to Primus' existing residential iPrimus customer base. Primus' acquisition would coincide with much industry consolidation as competitor Telstra purchased a 50% stake in mobile provider Hutchison 3G for A$450 million, Kaz Group for A$333 million and Damovo for A$64 million. Meanwhile, competitor Optus purchased Uecomm for A$227 million, a 50.8% stake in Alphawest and A$50 million for the remaining 74% of Virgin Mobile Australia . In early 2007, Primus sold PlanetDomain to NetRegistry for over A$8 million. In late 2008, Primus acquired Imagineering Data Centre, a Melbourne-based hosting and colocation provider.

Acquisition of iPrimus (2012–present)

On 16 April 2012, it was announced that Primus Telecom would be purchased by M2 Group in preparation for the National Broadband Network. Primus Telecom was acquired by M2 on 1 June 2012 for $192 million. In 2012 iPrimus in conjunction with

Hungry Jack's Hungry Jack's Pty Ltd. is an Australian fast food franchise of the Burger King Corporation. It is a wholly owned subsidiary of Competitive Foods Australia (with licensing from Restaurant Brands International), a privately held company owned by ...

launched a free

Wi-Fi Wi-Fi () is a family of wireless network protocols based on the IEEE 802.11 family of standards, which are commonly used for Wireless LAN, local area networking of devices and Internet access, allowing nearby digital devices to exchange data by ...

service in 348 stores, as part of a $6 million contract with Hungry Jack's parent company, Competitive Foods Australia.

Residential products

Broadband

iPrimus is one of Australia's largest telecommunications carriers and offers high-speed broadband through

ADSL Asymmetric digital subscriber line (ADSL) is a type of digital subscriber line (DSL) technology, a data communications technology that enables faster data transmission over Copper wire, copper telephone lines than a conventional voiceband modem ...

and ADSL2+, as well as NakedDSL and 3G mobile broadband. Primus's DSLAM network is one of the largest in Australia, with more than 66 exchanges.

Fixed line and mobile

The iPrimus mobile network is a virtual network operator and uses the

Optus Singtel Optus Pty Limited is an Australian Telecommunications in Australia, telecommunications company headquartered in Macquarie Park, a suburb in the Northern Sydney region of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. It is a wholly owned subsidiar ...

network, with 2G and 3G capabilities. Primus Telecom also offers a range of home phone and

VoIP Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), also known as IP telephony, is a set of technologies used primarily for voice communication sessions over Internet Protocol (IP) networks, such as the Internet. VoIP enables voice calls to be transmitted as ...

services.

Other services

iPrimus also offers add-on services including anti-virus and anti-spam filtering, dial-up Internet connection, WebFilter proxy, global roaming and wireless hotspot access. FetchTV is available to iPrimus broadband customers.

Business Products

Internet & Data

iPrimus offers business services including

, ADSL2+, SHDSL,

FTTH Fiber to the ''x'' (FTTX; also spelled "fibre") or fiber in the loop is a generic term for any broadband network architecture using optical fiber to provide all or part of the local loop used for last mile telecommunications. As fiber opt ...

Mobile Broadband Mobile broadband is the marketing term for Wireless broadband, wireless Internet access via mobile network, mobile (cell) networks. Access to the network can be made through a portable modem, wireless modem, or a Tablet computer, tablet/smartp ...

, and a variety of internet services including Private IP Networks,

Domain Names In the Internet, a domain name is a string that identifies a realm of administrative autonomy, authority, or control. Domain names are often used to identify services provided through the Internet, such as websites, email services, and more. D ...

Web Hosting A web hosting service is a type of Internet hosting service that hosts websites for clients, i.e. it offers the facilities required for them to create and maintain a site and makes it accessible on the World Wide Web. Companies providing web ho ...

Cloud Computing Cloud computing is "a paradigm for enabling network access to a scalable and elastic pool of shareable physical or virtual resources with self-service provisioning and administration on-demand," according to International Organization for ...

Virtual Hosting Virtual hosting is a method for hosting multiple domain names (with separate handling of each name) on a single server (or pool of servers). This allows one server to share its resources, such as memory and processor cycles, without requiring a ...

, Dedicated Hosting, Co-Location and

Managed Services Managed services is the practice of outsourcing the responsibility for maintaining, and anticipating need for, a range of processes and functions, ostensibly for the purpose of improved operations and reduced budgetary expenditures through the ...

. Mobility Services by Primus Telecom have recently included Blackberry solutions and dedicated Mobile business plans.

Voice

Primus Telecom services include

PSTN The public switched telephone network (PSTN) is the aggregate of the world's telephone networks that are operated by national, regional, or local telephony operators. It provides infrastructure and services for public telephony. The PSTN consists ...

ISDN Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN) is a set of communication standards for simultaneous digital transmission of voice, video, data, and other network services over the digitalised circuits of the public switched telephone network. ...

, SIP Trunks, Hosted IP Phone Systems, Inbound 1300/1800,

Intelligent network The Intelligent Network (IN) is the standard network architecture specified in the ITU-T Q.1200 series recommendations. It is intended for fixed as well as mobile telecom networks. It allows operators to differentiate themselves by providing ...

. Primus Accella operates as the Business Voice service for Primus Telecom and is a business-grade hosted communications solution.Primus Accella business solutions
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Awards

References

{{Internet service providers of Australia Companies based in Melbourne Internet service providers of Australia Mobile phone companies of Australia Telecommunications companies of Australia VoIP companies