Significantly, more than two thirds of Internode's customers are located outside its home state of South Australia. The privately-owned company has also strengthened its position in the enterprise sector, with more than 25 per cent of its revenues coming from its top 1000 customers.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) reported in September last year that Australia had only 10 Very Large ISPs (Internet Service Providers) - companies with 100,000 or more paid Internet subscribers - although the ABS report does not distinguish between broadband and dialup customers.

After signing up its 100,000th broadband customer early last month, Internode easily exceeds this criterion as it also has nearly 20,000 customers who use its standalone dial-up Internet access service.

Internode managing director Simon Hackett said the company's two-year growth surge showed no sign of abating. "Our current projections have us doubling our customer numbers before the end of next year," he said.

"Internode continues to balance demands from its enterprise customers and its residential customers in order to maximise the return on investment from our network. While demand from the former peaks during the day, most residential customers access our network after hours, so we efficiently service our two daily demand peaks."

Founded in 1991, Internode entered the broadband era in 2000 when it began building a high performance national network which now has dedicated capacity to Japan and the west coast of the United States

As well as more than 80,000 residential customers, Internode provides network connectivity services for national organisations including National Pharmacies, McGuigan Simeon Wines and Bianco Building Supplies. Other customers include the State Government of SA and the Royal Flying Doctor Service.

To meet the current strong demand for its enterprise networking services, Internode today launched a multi-million-dollar data centre in Adelaide. As its second data centre, this new facility provides full redundancy for the heart of Internode's national broadband network while boosting capacity by 400 per cent

As well as managing the strong demand for broadband Internet access, Internode is generating new income streams from services such as Private IP (Internet Protocol) networks for companies with multiple sites, and the NodePhone broadband telephony service. NodePhone is on track to service more than 10,000 business and residential customers by the end of the financial year.

"We expect the current strong growth in demand for broadband to continue until at least 2009-10, after which continued success will be influenced by offering the right mix of these and other value-added services running on top of the broadband platform," said Mr. Hackett. "Internode is investing to put itself in the best position for that next phase of the broadband market."

About Internode

Internode is a first tier IP carrier committed to using broadband technology to redefine the national telecommunications environment. The Australian-owned company is a trailblazer that delivers broadband services to individuals and businesses throughout Australia.