Tom Pollock, Atria; Marjorie Richards, Hamilton Utilities Corporation
Expanded 3,000 km fibre-optic network is one of Ontariois largest
(Kitchener/Hamilton, ON) Atria Networks LP today announced that it has acquired the assets of FibreWired Hamilton from Hamilton Utilities Corporation. FibreWired Hamilton staff will continue working as Atria Networks employees and will benefit from being a part of a much larger data services organization.
Since its inception in 1998, FibreWired Hamilton has created an extensive regional fibre-optic network and provided public and private sector customers with the highest-speed Internet and data services.
For Atria, the FibreWired acquisition extends its fibre-optic infrastructure into the important Ontario market of Hamilton. The move follows Atria’s recent acquisitions of Simcoe Community Broadband Network (SCBN Telecommunications Inc.), the primary fibre-optic data communications service provider for Barrie and the Simcoe County area, and PowerStream’s fibre-optic assets throughout the York Region.
"We’re looking forward to serving Hamilton area businesses and are excited about the prospects for enhancing the community’s data services," said Steve McCartney, CEO of Atria Networks. "Businesses and public sector customers in Hamilton will now have unprecedented seamless access to an expanded 3,000 km fibre-optic network operating across Central Ontario, with extended service into markets that are home to more than 170,000 enterprises and populated by over 2.6 million people."
The added capability of the state-of-the-art Hamilton-based data centre augments Atria’s high-security commercial data services, providing business continuity and disaster recovery services in close proximity to all Atria customers. Atria will continue to offer security solutions that are internally managed and controlled.
Atria Networks will serve FibreWired customers through its regional Hamilton office, adding new and enhanced services as they become available.
"Hamilton Utilities recognized some time ago that its opportunities to support FibreWired Hamilton in creating additional value for customers, employees, and its shareholder were becoming limited," said John Basilio, Senior Vice-President and Chief Financial Officer of Hamilton Utilities Corporation. "A strategic divestiture resulting in a larger and more diversified company made the most sense for all stakeholders and we are very pleased with this transaction including the delivery of significant return to our shareholder, the City of Hamilton, on its investment in FibreWired Hamilton. We extend our best wishes to Atria, its customers, and its employees for future success."
About Atria Networks
Atria Networks LP owns and operates a contiguous fibre-optic network that connects vibrant and growing markets across Ontario with fast, highly dependable Internet access, point-to-point data connectivity, IT continuity and disaster recovery services.
With one of the most extensive fibre-optic networks in Ontario, Atria can scale immediately to meet any bandwidth requirement. Continuity services include offsite data storage, email and web security, and Internet redundancy for protection against downtime losses in revenue and productivity. Active in the communities served, Atria Networks provides free WiFi Internet in public libraries and invests locally in education and literacy.
About FibreWired Hamilton
FibreWired Hamilton is a diverse telecommunications enterprise supported by a 600 km network of fibre-optic cable, spanning a broad contiguous area centered in Hamilton, Ontario. The company provides high-speed data solutions, Internet connectivity, professional services, and recently designed and constructed a high security commercial data centre providing business continuity and disaster recovery services.
About Hamilton Utilities Corporation
Hamilton Utilities Corporation is a holding company with a 78.9 per cent ownership in a regulated local electricity distribution company (Horizon Utilities Corporation) and a district energy facility operating in downtown Hamilton (Hamilton Community Energy). The company is committed to providing essential public utility and related services in a manner that balances commercial discipline with environmental and social responsibility. Hamilton Utilities Corporation is wholly-owned by the City of Hamilton. For more information, visit: www.hamiltonucorp.com.
Steven McCartney, Atria; Eric Fagen, PowerStream Inc.
Data services extended across Central Ontario
(Kitchener/York Region, ON, October 26, 2007) Atria Networks LP today announced that it has acquired the fibre-optic assets and related contracts of PowerStream Inc., the electricity distribution company jointly owned by the City of Vaughan and the Town of Markham.
"We’re excited about extending our network coverage and providing high-speed reliable data services for these local area businesses and look forward to servicing this community," said Steve McCartney, CEO of Atria Networks.
The acquisition of PowerStream’s fibre-optic assets is another important step forward for Atria’s goal of establishing a contiguous network that connects vibrant, growing markets across Ontario with fast and highly dependable Internet access. For PowerStream, the transaction is a strategic opportunity.
"Although we are still retaining sufficient communications infrastructure for our operating and distribution network, the sale of our surplus fibre-optic assets is consistent with our strategy to be more focused on our core business of providing electricity distribution services to the customers in our service territory," Brian Bentz, PowerStream’s President and CEO explained. "By selling these assets to Atria Networks LP, we have ensured that our customers will be serviced by an organization which specializes in this type of product and business."
The PowerStream acquisition follows a recent and similar acquisition of the Simcoe Community Broadband Network, or SCBN, the primary fibre-optic Internet service provider for Barrie and surrounding area.
Consistent with its growth strategy, Atria will soon directly connect areas such as Markham, Richmond Hill and Vaughan to Barrie and Waterloo, providing unprecedented seamless access to an expanded fibre-optic network operating across Central Ontario.
Through its regional offices, Atria Networks will continue to serve PowerStream fibre-optic customers, adding new and enhanced services as they become available.
About Atria Networks
Atria Networks LP specializes in business data services, offering the fastest high-dependability solutions for Internet access, point-to-point connectivity and IT continuity.
With one of the most extensive fibre-optic networks in Ontario, Atria can scale immediately to meet any bandwidth requirement. Continuity services include offsite data storage, email and web security, and Internet redundancy for protection against downtime losses in revenue and productivity. Active in the communities served, Atria Networks provides free WiFi Internet in public libraries and invests locally in education and literacy.
About PowerStream
PowerStream Inc. is the third largest local electricity distribution company in Ontario, providing service to more than 234,000 residential and business customers in the municipalities of Aurora, Markham, Richmond Hill and Vaughan. It is an incorporated entity, jointly owned by the City of Vaughan and the Town of Markham.
Atria Networks acquires SCBN Telecommunications Inc.
DATE:
March 31, 2007
SOURCE:
Atria Networks
CONTACT:
Steven McCartney, Atria
Atria Networks acquires SCBN Telecommunications Inc.
(March 31, 2007) Atria Networks LP acquires SCBN Telecommunications Inc., a facilities-based provider of fibre-optic network services throughout the Simcoe Community region.
The acquisition of SCBN is another important step forward for Atria’s goal of establishing a contiguous network that connects vibrant, growing markets across Ontario with fast and highly dependable Internet access and data services.
Through its regional offices, Atria Networks will continue to serve SCBN customers, adding new and enhanced services as they become available.
About SCBN Telecommunications Inc.
SCBN Telecommunications Inc. is a facilities-based provider of fibre-optic network services throughout the Simcoe Community region. Currently the company has, in place and operational, over 1000 kilometers of lit fibre-optic networking. Within the Simcoe County area more than 250 building sites have been wired to the fibre-optic plant. Including; all public and separate schools, 6 hospitals, 5 health-care units, all college campus sites, 25 libraries and more than 30 other county and municipal offices. Building of this extensive data network was completed at the end of 2002. SCBN is, now the network service provider for a growing number of local business and Internet Service Providers.
Atria Networks Poised for Stronger Growth with New Ownership
DATE:
October 25, 2006
SOURCE:
Atria Networks
CONTACT:
Steven McCartney, Atria; Pierre Schuurmans, Birch Hill
Birch Hill Equity Partners buys local telecom, ready to invest
(Kitchener, ON, October 25, 2006) The shareholders of Atria Networks Inc. today announced that they have agreed to sell their interest in the Atria Networks business to Birch Hill Equity Partners. Atria’s joint owners – Cambridge and North Dumfries Energy Plus Inc., Guelph Hydro Inc., Kitchener Power Inc., and Waterloo North Hydro Holding Company – have agreed in principal to sell at a profit the telecommunications company they started six years ago.
Since its inception in 2000, Atria Networks (formerly Fibretech Telecommunications and Guelph Fibrewired) has satisfied a demand for local high-speed data services previously unmet by the private sector. Having accomplished the objectives of its original mandate, Atria’s continued success in a restricted market space would become increasingly difficult.
"Regional telecommunications is now a very sophisticated and fast-paced business," said Steve McCartney, president of Atria. "With competitive pressures mounting and new telecommunications services in strong demand, Atria’s strategic growth dictates a need for capital investment and access to a larger market."
Birch Hill Equity Partners will fill that critical role and help the company achieve its full potential.
"We see a tremendous untapped potential for fibre-optic data services," said Birch Hill principal, Thecla Sweeney. "Our involvement as an equity partner will allow Atria to grow and pursue opportunities in its current markets as well as those previously beyond its corporate mandate."
Birch Hill is committed to continuing investment in Atria’s community initiatives such as free Wi-Fi Internet in the libraries, services for the Waterloo Region Children's Museum, and early childhood literacy programs.
Birch Hill Equity Partners Inc. invests in leading Canadian middle-market businesses. This is the latest investment made through its $850 million fund, Birch Hill Equity Partners III, LP. The 23 member team at Birch Hill has many years of experience working together as an active partner with top management teams in building long-term value.
Atria Networks is a diverse telecommunications enterprise supported by a 1000 km network of fibre-optic cable, spanning a broad contiguous area from Orangeville in the northeast to the townships southwest of Kitchener. The company provides high-speed data solutions, Internet connectivity, bundled Layer 3 services for business, and recently designed and constructed fully operational Wi-Fi mesh networks in several urban cores.
WhereEver Wireless Internet expands with extensive off-campus coverage
August 15, 2006 – (Waterloo, ON) Starting September 1st, students, residents and businesses around the University of Waterloo and Wilfrid Laurier University will have access to comprehensive Wireless Internet, or “Wi-Fi”, service.
Atria Networks, which introduced wireless Internet with hot spots around the Region and covered Uptown Waterloo in the fall of 2005, will now offer wireless Internet over a wider area in Waterloo using a network aptly named “WhereEver”.
“The wi-fi coverage offered by the “WheverEver” network is unmatched by any provider in Ontario at the present time,” says Stu Wilson, vice president of sales and marketing for Atria Networks. “WhereEver builds on a first phase of zoned service and begins to link areas for seamless Internet access across the Region.”
While some residences and small businesses currently use wireless routers connected to traditional wired Ethernet plugs, these access points are limited to a single site. With Atria’s WhereEver service, connections can be made anywhere in the service territory – in the home or down the street at the local coffee shop.
The WhereEver wi-fi grid is connected to Atria’s extensive 1100 km fibre-optic network, the fastest and most reliable in the Region, and powered by leading-edge Cisco software and hardware.
“We are bringing the very best technology to this local service, but like any venture that leads the way, we anticipate some valuable learning in the field as we move forward,” says Wilson. “That’s why we’re encouraging potential customers to join us in “experimenting” with the newfound freedom offered by ubiquitous Internet access. We consider our first monthly sign-ups to be early adopters and pioneers. They can help us with feedback and we’ll reciprocate with great packages and first-class technical and customer service.”
Wilson indicated the WhereEver service will be made available through a variety of service plans ranging from monthly subscriptions to hourly fees.
Wireless Internet is taking hold in communities around the world due to ease of access and improved productivity with an increasingly mobile workforce.
To learn more about the new service, the whereever.ca website will be online by August 25.
For Further Information:
Stu Wilson
Vice President, Sales and Marketing
Atria Networks Inc.
(519) 593-3025 swillson@atrianetworks.com
Plans are underway to blanket most of the area with wireless internet coverage, which would allow people to roam from Waterloo to Cambridge without losing Internet access.
Atria Networks Inc., a joint venture of four local hydro utilities, plans to roll out wireless internet, or wi-fi, to Kitchener, Waterloo, Cambridge, Guelph and 14 other communities in Waterloo Region and southern Wellington County by the end of 2007, said Steven McCartney, Atria's chief executive officer.
The company is seeking government approvals to install transmission devices on traffic-signal and utility poles.
On March 22, Waterloo regional council approvals an agreement under which Atria will pay the region $24.60 per traffic-signal pole.
If Atria receives all necessary approvals, the rollout will begin in June, McCartney said.
Atria has offered wireless access in uptown Waterloo since October and has also set up wi-fi "hot spots" in several area libraries, businesses and community centers.
But the company's new plans would surpass any existing wi-fi rollout in Canada.
"We think this becomes exponentially more useful if it becomes (available) almost everywhere," McCartney said..
The largest area now served with wi-fi in Canada is Fredericton, said Marc Choma, spokesperson for the Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Association. But much of Fredericton is not covered under that city's municipal wi-fi project.
In the United States, Tempe, Ariz., and Oklahoma City have city-wide wi-fi networks, while several other cities, including Chicago, Philadelphia and Washington, have such networks in the planning stage. Google Inc. is preparing a network for San Francisco.
Unlike Fredericton's city-owned network and Google's proposed advertising-supported one, Waterloo Region's wi-fi network would not be free.
"We don't believe it will be sustainable to develop a free service," McCartney told a Waterloo wi-fi conference yesterday.
Currently, users of the UpTown Waterloo hot spot pay $29.95 per month for 2,500 megabytes of data transfer.
Wi-fi is not intended to replace cable modems or digital-subscriber line broadband Internet, McCartney said.
The target customer for wi-fi is someone who needs to access the internet from different places, such as a home and a small business. Atria's network would allow the person to access the internet from both location without paying twice, McCartney said.
Wi-fi is now used mostly with laptop computers, but in the future, it may be used more with hand-held devices like Research In Motion Ltd's BlackBerry. People will be able to make phone calls by combining wi-fi and voice over Internet Protocol, or VOIP, technology.
Wi-fi is faster and cheaper than the cellular networks now used with most mobile-communications devices, McCartney said.
Exchange Magazine's featured article: Wired world grows tighter
Steven McCartney heads Atria Networks, the result of the merger of the area's utility-owned telecommunications companies
(Sep 2, 2005)
The merger of two area companies has created one of the largest utility-owned telecommunications corporations in Ontario.
Atria Networks Inc. is the new company formed by the merger of Kitchener-based FibreTech Telecommunications and Guelph FibreWired. FibreTech was owned by the three hydro utilities in Waterloo Region: Kitchener-Wilmot Hydro, Waterloo North Hydro and Cambridge and North Dumfries. Guelph FibreWired was owned by Guelph Hydro.
Atria will be owned by the utilities, which are owned by the municipalities.
The president is Steven McCartney, who previously held the top job at FibreTech.
The merger will result in no job losses, he said, and the company will likely do "a small amount of hiring in the new year."
Atria has 23 employees, 18 in the Kitchener office and five in Guelph.
Fibretech and Guelph FibreWired specialized in offering fibre-optic cable to carry Internet and other data communications services. The merger gives Atria five per cent of the local business telecommunications market, McCartney said.
Growing demand and the desire to offer new products and services prompted the merger, he said.
"Atria is a geographic consolidation and a natural move to ensure we can continue to add the products and services these dynamic markets demand," he said in a press release.
Atria also hopes to extend its Wi-Fi coverage, which offers wireless Internet service, to libraries and private users, and to offer telephone service for the first time. Trials for the phone service, which is carried over the same cable, will start in early 2006, he said.
With the merger, Atria will operate more than 1,000 kilometres of fibre-optic cable, spanning an area from Orangeville in the northeast to the townships southwest of Kitchener.
In October, FibreTech announced a merger with FibreWired in Hamilton, but that deal has been put on the back burner, McCartney said. "It got dragged so much into politics and governance that we agreed to set it aside and come back at it later. The negotiations just dragged on too long."
McCartney said demand is still strong for fibre-optic cable. The broadband explosion of 1999 to 2001 has levelled off but there has been steady growth in the past few years, he said.
Atria does design and operational work, then contracts out the laying of the fibre-optic cable.
The name Atria was chosen to emphasize the company's belief in the "power of community connection," the company said. Atria is the plural of atrium, Latin for an open central court or a public meeting space full of space and light in a home or building.
"This positive association aligns perfectly with the company's vision to bring communities together to nurture improved business and community relationships using broadband technology," McCartney said in the news release.
Local utility telecoms merge to form Atria Networks Inc.
Local utility telecoms merge to form Atria Networks Inc.
DATE:
September 1 , 2005
SOURCE:
AUTHOR:
FibreTech of Waterloo Region and Guelph FibreWired create new,community-owned telecommunications company
Kitchener, Guelph, ON - September 1 - FibreTech Telecommunications, jointly owned by three Waterloo Region hydro utilities, and Guelph FibreWired, owned by Guelph Hydro, today announced a merger creating a new data communications company, Atria Networks Inc.
As a joint venture of local utilities, Atria Networks is a community-owned enterprise that will continue to provide uniquely fast and reliable broadband data communications within its service areas.
The newly formed company will be one of the province's largest utility telecommunications corporations. Atria combines two extensive networks that comprise over 1000 kilometres of fibre-optic cable, spanning a broad contiguous area from Orangeville in the northeast to the townships southwest of Kitchener.
"Atria Networks will serve two fast-growing markets more effectively," said Steven McCartney, president and CEO of Atria Networks.
"Waterloo Region and the Guelph area are becoming powerhouse economies in this province," said McCartney. "This merger anticipates an expanding need for our broadband services. Atria is a geographic consolidation and a natural move to ensure we can continue to add the products and services these dynamic markets demand."
Atria offers customers the advantages of a network doubled in size, with competitive efficiencies and strengths better suited to a fast-paced telecommunications marketplace.
Atria Networks will retain a strong local community presence in Waterloo Region and Guelph.
"Our success will depend, as it always has, on the support of local clients and stakeholders," said company vice-president Stu Wilson.
"Commitment to community is what sets us apart from giants in the telecom business and forms our identity. That commitment won't change with this merger."
The new company's name derives from a core belief in power of community connection.
The word Atria is plural for atrium, a Latin word for an open central court in a home or building. Atria are public meeting places usually full of space and light.
"This positive association aligns perfectly with the company's vision to bring communities together, to nurture improved business and community relationships using broadband technology," said McCartney.
For More Information:
Steven McCartney
President, Atria Networks
519-593-3000
Stu Wilson
Vice-President, Atria Networks
519-780-1211, ext 101
Christopher Copp
Copp Communications
519-342-8692
Background:
Guelph FibreWired
formerly, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Guelph Hydro Inc., created to provide high-speed Internet communications services to Guelph, Centre Wellington and Orangeville
over 300 kilometres of installed fibre-optic cable and advanced laser technology
the area's most robust and highest capacity Internet data service.
FibreTech Telecommunications
founded in 2000
a joint venture of Waterloo North Hydro, Kitchener Power Corporation and Cambridge and North Dumfries Energy Plus Inc.
over 600 kilometres of fibre-optic network and laser technology in Waterloo Region, and similar high-capacity, high-speed Internet data service within its markets
