[Sydney, AUSTRALIA] The Australian Stock Exchange (ASX) has become the first of what Cable & Wireless Optus (CWO) hopes will be many financial community members to use its new private network, eFinity.
The Australian-developed eFinity business-grade network allows entire communities of interest to transact online in a private environment. “eFinity will provide assured levels of speed and efficiency of information transfer, which is extremely important for time-critical transactions such as share price information, freight management and just-in-time manufacturing,” said CWO managing director of data and business services, Chris Hancock.
Hancock said that CWO created eFinity based on a perception that the existing Internet environment cannot support the increasing demands of e-commerce, particularly B2B, and that dedicated private networks are inflexible increasingly expensive to maintain.
eFinity brings together these two capabilities, with CWO maintaining the network provides transmissions that are swift, efficient and secure, and with the ability to allow complete or partial Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) to connect on a shared infrastructure.
ASX will use eFinity to improve the delivery of its existing market data and its CHESS services, and to aid the future development and delivery of information-related products. It will offer the service to some of its customers, and intends to expand this offer to all customers over the next few months.
While CWO sees applications of eFinity across a range of industries, it is first targeting the service at the financial sector. EFinity will also serve as the first of a series of international online financial centres that will use the Cable & Wireless IP backbone.
