Perth's Future Broadband acquired by Aussie SDN, SD-WAN specialist ActivePort

ASX-listed software-defined networking (SDN) and SD-WAN company ActivePort has acquired Perth-based NBN reseller Future Broadband.

In its announcement, ActivePort said the deal would help create Australia’s first fully orchestrated, end-to-end, self-service SD-WAN solution, and the merged company would also deliver a single-vendor, self-service edge-to-cloud SD-WAN orchestration portal.

Future will be acquired in a 100 percent scrip deal priced at 20 cents per ActivePort share, and is expected to bring in $1.8 million in revenue to ActivePort.

Future founder Jason Mikronis will also join ActivePort “to help drive” the Global Edge offering.

“I’ve been deeply involved in Australia’s internet industry since 2004, with brand-names including People Telecom, Optus, AAnet, Eftel, AusBBS and Amaysim. I built Future Broadband with automation in mind and the synergies of my service with ActivePort’s Global Edge was too compelling to miss,” Mikronis said.

“ActivePort’s software rounds-out the enterprise features my customers need including SD-WAN and NFV and their global reach enables me to export my expertise to international markets.”

ActivePort’s Global Edge is a self-service network provisioning and management portal aimed to help simplify connecting offices, facilities, and devices at the edge of the network anywhere in the world, to data centres and cloud services at the core.

Future brings in end-to-end provisioning to Global Edge, which would provide customers the ability to build an entire network, including carrier services, from a single portal.

Future’s customers that have previously purchased intercontinental data communications links from global providers can use Global Edge to build a dynamic network for lower costs, as well as for the automated end-to-end provisioning and integrated SD-WAN technology.

ActivePort chief executive Karim Nejaim said, “We built Global Edge as a next-generation network-as-a-service (NaaS) software platform that extends all the way from Cloud to Edge with integrated SD-WAN and network function virtualisation (NFV) capability."

“The acquisition of Future Broadband and the addition of Jason to our team, will accelerate deployment of our Global Edge platform in Australia and internationally. Global Edge makes network delivery much easier and faster, especially for our international customers buying services in Australia.

"Those customers no longer need to research carriers in Australia, call for quotes, wait and then place orders. Now they can simply login to the Global Edge portal, select local carriers, bond their interconnects, add cloud services and connect.”