Voyager Internet acquires Kiwi telco HD Net

Local internet service provider Voyager Internet has completed its acquisition of HD Net, a local telco specialising in broadband, cloud, data center, and telco services.

Voyager, which has been bringing a local flavour to the New Zealand telco scene since 2010, is the sixth-largest ISP with more than 100 staff.

Voyager and HD Net (HD) were both started at similar times by two entrepreneurial Kiwi founders, who between them have an inordinate amount of industry knowledge.

HD will now become part of Voyager, except for HD's data center assets.

Speaking to TechDay, Voyager CEO Seeby Woodhouse says that Voyager was attracted to HD's internet data center capabilities, which is something that Voyager didn't have.

"This allows Voyager to stop paying other providers to house all our servers and networking equipment.

"We feel there is an advantage to running the data center as 'carrier-neutral', so that other ISPs are not dis-incentivized from using the facility. Voyager is a customer of the HD data center in the same way as any other customer would be.

Woodhouse, who founded Voyager and Orcon, has known HD's founder Ben Simpson for many years. Simpson adds that he is thrilled with the acquisition.

"The HD data center is the primary reason that Voyager was attracted to HD. The continued growth of cloud services and as a permanent home for Voyager to grow its infrastructure technology base from makes longer-term strategic sense. HD's state-of-the-art data center Infrastructure enables Voyager to better serve their existing customers and opens a wealth of new business opportunities.

Woodhouse notes that Voyager also had better supplier buy prices than HD did, which allowed the company to make savings for HD's business.

Simpson adds that HD will also benefit from having the backing of a larger firm, which can help fund data center growth.

"This will ensure that the company continues to offer customers a facility that provides 'mission-critical' uptime, reliability, - redundancy.

Woodhouse adds that Voyager will now move its services into the HD data center situated in Albany on Auckland's North Shore.

"Voyager's team and product portfolio around hosting and cloud will be strengthened with more combined revenue, more expertise, a rounder portfolio of services.

Simpson adds, "Companies across New Zealand rely on Voyager to strategically help them do business better with their extensive knowledge of all things digital. The purchase of HD helps to ensure Voyager is the absolute right choice as a digital transformation partner for New Zealand organisations.

Woodhouse adds that HD's broadband customers will be able to take advantage of Voyager's superior upstream Internet network, with more peers, faster total speeds, and bigger pipes.

"HD support hours will be improved and extended to 7 days a week. For Voyager, our customers will have a few more products they can buy from us on a single bill (Such as co-location or cloud services)," says Woodhouse.

"Voyager's acquisition of HD cements Voyager's position as a true player in the Data Center and Cloud business, in addition to our existing Domains, Broadband and Voice revenue streams," he concludes.

HD Net customers will hear from Voyager in the coming weeks, as the details around what changes they can expect are being rolled out.

"In the coming weeks, we will be making some changes in the background to move your account and services over to Voyager. Don't worry, the changeover will be simple and there will be minimal disruption to your service. Most likely, you won't even notice the change - other than Voyager's awesome speeds! Voyager will contact you to let you know when we've started planning your migration."

To find out more, visit Voyager's website.