Telair marks 20 years as independent Australian telco

Telair has marked 20 years as an independent Australian telecommunications provider, placing it among the country's longer-standing independent telcos.

Founded by Managing Director Edward Wenman in 2006, the business has built a national infrastructure footprint with points of interconnect in every major Australian capital city. It now serves enterprise, government, and small and medium-sized business customers, as well as property, infrastructure, and managed service providers.

Its operations span three segments: business telecommunications through Telair, managed service provider support through Telair Wholesale, and residential services through MyOwn Tel. The company has also expanded into managed IT services, including endpoint security, monitoring, and managed IT support.

Wenman said the anniversary reflected two decades of customer relationships and network investment.

"Twenty years ago, we saw an opportunity to do something the major carriers weren't, and what we've built from that is a business with national reach, carrier-grade infrastructure and a support model most telcos still can't match," Wenman said.

He said the company's support operation remained a key focus.

"Our 20-second average call wait time reflects the standard we hold ourselves to every day.

"In two decades of operation, we've built our network around resilience, with carrier diversity, redundancy and the infrastructure backing to keep our customers connected when it matters. That's the operational discipline and investment we're bringing into the next phase of growth," Wenman said.

Network reach

Telair aggregates connectivity across multiple carrier networks rather than relying on a single provider. This allows customers to choose technology based on site requirements across single-site and multi-site operations.

More recently, the group became a foundation customer of SUBCO's Sydney-Melbourne-Adelaide-Perth subsea cable, known as SMAP. The 5,000km route has been described as Australia's largest transcontinental capacity upgrade in almost 25 years.

The move adds subsea connectivity to Telair's broader national network, which combines 2N redundancy with diverse terrestrial links. The aim is to maintain service reliability across Australia as demand for bandwidth and network resilience rises.

Wenman said the SMAP agreement formed part of the company's longer-term network planning.

"Becoming a SUBCO foundation customer on SMAP is a significant move in future-proofing Telair's network and the services we deliver to our customers," Wenman said.

"It positions us to meet rising demand for capacity and resilience well into the future, with a trusted partner."

Market changes

The anniversary follows a period of consolidation and technological change in the Australian telecommunications market. Independent providers have had to compete with larger carriers while responding to shifting customer expectations around reliability, support, and network flexibility.

Telair said its growth has come from prioritising service depth over customer volume. The company operates offices in Brisbane, Perth, Sydney, and Melbourne, and its support team is fully based in Australia.

Wenman said the company had adapted to major changes in the sector since its launch.

"The telecommunications market in Australia has changed enormously since 2006," Wenman said.

"Carriers have consolidated, technology has transformed, and the expectations businesses have of their connectivity have shifted fundamentally. We've grown and adapted across all of it, and we've done it without compromising the quality of our services.

"Twenty years in business is something we're incredibly proud of, and now we look forward to what's next," Wenman said.