Adam Internet

A hi-tech life that just keeps gathering speed	04 Dec 2004
(Source: The Advertiser 04/12/04) LEAPING on and off a moving ferris wheel is Greg Hicks's favourite childhood memory. More than 30 years later, sideshow alley thrills have given way to a high-speed ride on the information superhighway. "I'm still reliving my childhood,'' says the founder and chairman of Adam Internet. "My philosophy towards life and business is that you can't be successful unless you enjoy what you're doing.'' Mr Hicks, through his solely South Australian internet service provider (ISP), is again heading for a crest. This time it is aboard the next generation of broadband technology. "It's bringing everything to do with the internet full circle,'' he says of Adam's move to create free community data services as part of its new broadband network. The system is independent of Telstra's DSL (digital subscriber line) exchanges. "The content will start to become local again and not just from the U.S. and Europe,'' Mr Hicks says. Yesterday's launching of a radically expanded Adam Internet service also completes a full circle of what Mr Hicks set out to do with Adam when he began a bulletin-board service in the mid-1980s. "Before the internet came out, people from all over Australia were ringing into our bulletin boards, which had more than 200 phone lines connecting local communities,'' Mr Hicks says. He says the AdamDirect network will allow the company and its 16 affiliated ISP wholesale clients to offer tens of thousands of customers free voice and data services at lightning speed within a local exchange areas. If all goes according to plan, Mr Hicks expects the service could put a rocket under the company's annual turnover - quadrupling it to as much as $50 million within five years. "The potential is huge,'' he says. "I had a potential (takeover) offer for the company four years ago but then I saw an opportunity for DSL. "Australia is lagging the rest of the world but this will put South Australia into national leadership.'' Ironically, the secret to the high-speed coverage of more than 24 exchanges around Adelaide will be to offer much more to customers free of charge. "In America, people pay only for local access,'' Mr Hicks says. "Bandwidth is free through what is called peering centres. "In Australia, there is absolutely nothing for nothing on the internet at the moment. It's like a taxi meter that ticks away and, when you're net surfing, it's charged by the minute.'' In coming months, local government, businesses from fast-food outlets to video shops, and private citizens will tap into the network and unleash vast amounts of information into the system. Fees will only be incurred if a purchase is made. It will add a lot of value to our services and compete for the first time directly with Telstra,'' Mr Hicks says. THE state's oldest ISP has come far since Mr Hicks, as an early home computer fan, set up the Adelaide Amiga Club with a few mates at Mawson High School in 1986. Back then, the name Adam was a simple amalgam of Adelaide and Amiga. As it evolves, Mr Hicks likes to think the name is more suggestive of the "Adam and Eve'' image of treading new ground. "I have a knack of being able to notice products which are consumable and which people will want to use,'' he says. This dates back to the age of 12 when he was a regular CB (citizen-band) radio user. In the mid-1980s, he became one of the leading salesman for Voca Communications fax machines which started to replace older telex systems. In an earlier venture, with a home-video hire group of retail outlets in Adelaide, he developed one of the first computerised card systems in Australia. So popular was the Adam Bulletin Board Service, his Flagstaff Hill home became one of the first in Adelaide to receive a fibre-optic cable instead of traditional copper lines from the nearby Coromandel Valley exchange. "Telstra, in fact, has helped my business ventures on several occasions,'' he recalls. Freewheeling is how he describes his childhood in Perth where he spent most holidays selling tickets and supervising fairground rides with his extended family. "My uncles used to argue with my grandparents as to who'd take me for the day,'' he laughs. "One of my favourite rides was the ferris wheel because I liked to impress the girls jumping on and off.'' Not content to remain in his father's Melbourne real estate firm, he constantly searched for new entrepreneurial avenues. "I opened one of the first video stores in Melbourne (in 1978) when I managed to upset the distributors by finding a loophole in renting magnetic videos,'' he says. Royalties from the software he subsequently developed to keep track of rented videos helped to finance the start of Adam in its bulletin board days. He also pioneered the use of CD burners in Australia and developed a remote-access terminal-server system used by Telstra in five capital cities in the 1980s. By 1992 Adam had a satellite link to the U.S. and in 2002 adopted ADSL (Assymetrical DSL). It won its telco carrier's licence in September and launced internet telephone services as AdamTalk last month. Mr Hicks was lured to SA after meeting his wife Keren in 1977. Their son Scott is managing director of Adam, which has 35 staff and is quickly outgrowing its head office in Gilbert St, city.

A hi-tech life that just keeps gathering speed

04 Dec 2004

(Source: The Advertiser 04/12/04)

LEAPING on and off a moving ferris wheel is Greg Hicks's favourite childhood memory. More than 30 years later, sideshow alley thrills have given way to a high-speed ride on the information superhighway.

"I'm still reliving my childhood,'' says the founder and chairman of Adam Internet.

"My philosophy towards life and business is that you can't be successful unless you enjoy what you're doing.''

Mr Hicks, through his solely South Australian internet service provider (ISP), is again heading for a crest. This time it is aboard the next generation of broadband technology.

"It's bringing everything to do with the internet full circle,'' he says of Adam's move to create free community data services as part of its new broadband network. The system is independent of Telstra's DSL (digital subscriber line) exchanges.

"The content will start to become local again and not just from the U.S. and Europe,'' Mr Hicks says.

Yesterday's launching of a radically expanded Adam Internet service also completes a full circle of what Mr Hicks set out to do with Adam when he began a bulletin-board service in the mid-1980s.

"Before the internet came out, people from all over Australia were ringing into our bulletin boards, which had more than 200 phone lines connecting local communities,'' Mr Hicks says.

He says the AdamDirect network will allow the company and its 16 affiliated ISP wholesale clients to offer tens of thousands of customers free voice and data services at lightning speed within a local exchange areas.

If all goes according to plan, Mr Hicks expects the service could put a rocket under the company's annual turnover - quadrupling it to as much as $50 million within five years.

"The potential is huge,'' he says. "I had a potential (takeover) offer for the company four years ago but then I saw an opportunity for DSL.

"Australia is lagging the rest of the world but this will put South Australia into national leadership.''

Ironically, the secret to the high-speed coverage of more than 24 exchanges around Adelaide will be to offer much more to customers free of charge.

"In America, people pay only for local access,'' Mr Hicks says. "Bandwidth is free through what is called peering centres.

"In Australia, there is absolutely nothing for nothing on the internet at the moment. It's like a taxi meter that ticks away and, when you're net surfing, it's charged by the minute.''

In coming months, local government, businesses from fast-food outlets to video shops, and private citizens will tap into the network and unleash vast amounts of information into the system. Fees will only be incurred if a purchase is made. It will add a lot of value to our services and compete for the first time directly with Telstra,'' Mr Hicks says.

THE state's oldest ISP has come far since Mr Hicks, as an early home computer fan, set up the Adelaide Amiga Club with a few mates at Mawson High School in 1986.

Back then, the name Adam was a simple amalgam of Adelaide and Amiga.

As it evolves, Mr Hicks likes to think the name is more suggestive of the "Adam and Eve'' image of treading new ground. "I have a knack of being able to notice products which are consumable and which people will want to use,'' he says. This dates back to the age of 12 when he was a regular CB (citizen-band) radio user.

In the mid-1980s, he became one of the leading salesman for Voca Communications fax machines which started to replace older telex systems.

In an earlier venture, with a home-video hire group of retail outlets in Adelaide, he developed one of the first computerised card systems in Australia.

So popular was the Adam Bulletin Board Service, his Flagstaff Hill home became one of the first in Adelaide to receive a fibre-optic cable instead of traditional copper lines from the nearby Coromandel Valley exchange.

"Telstra, in fact, has helped my business ventures on several occasions,'' he recalls.

Freewheeling is how he describes his childhood in Perth where he spent most holidays selling tickets and supervising fairground rides with his extended family.

"My uncles used to argue with my grandparents as to who'd take me for the day,'' he laughs.

"One of my favourite rides was the ferris wheel because I liked to impress the girls jumping on and off.''

Not content to remain in his father's Melbourne real estate firm, he constantly searched for new entrepreneurial avenues.

"I opened one of the first video stores in Melbourne (in 1978) when I managed to upset the distributors by finding a loophole in renting magnetic videos,'' he says.

Royalties from the software he subsequently developed to keep track of rented videos helped to finance the start of Adam in its bulletin board days.

He also pioneered the use of CD burners in Australia and developed a remote-access terminal-server system used by Telstra in five capital cities in the 1980s. By 1992 Adam had a satellite link to the U.S. and in 2002 adopted ADSL (Assymetrical DSL). It won its telco carrier's licence in September and launced internet telephone services as AdamTalk last month.

Mr Hicks was lured to SA after meeting his wife Keren in 1977. Their son Scott is managing director of Adam, which has 35 staff and is quickly outgrowing its head office in Gilbert St, city.

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