ONLINE, Cambodia’s first internet service provider (ISP) received a gold award from the Business Initiative Direction International Quality Summit in New York in May.

ONLINE, a Cambodian-owned company, was started in 1997 under Australian telecom and internet giant Telstra, but was taken over by the Cambodian-owned company Cogetel in 2002.

ONLINE was the first broadband ISP, the first WiMAX operator and the first ISP to deploy GPON technology in Cambodia, according to sales and market director Hul Vicheth.

“Our core network consists of a high speed fibre optic ring linking our two data centers via diverse routes with strong network redundancy linking Cambodia with 24 cities” he said.

ONLINE also won an award earlier this year from the International Data Group (IDG) Cambodia.

“This is the largest number of awards an ISP has ever won from IDG Cambodia” said Hul Vicheth.

Telstra operated with dial up technology with a max speed of around 64kps, but when Cogetel took over in 2002 the company moved to DSL and fibre optic technology he said.

In 1997, when Telstra was operating, the only other ISP was state-owned CamNet he said.

The Company offers bronze, silver, platinum and home-saver internet schemes, he said. “We cater to all customers, from big business to students” and most of the company’s customer are small to medium sized businesses he said.