Graphics houses, printers and publishers throughout North America may soon be able to avoid costly courier charges by moving large files over an extranet designed especially for graphic arts applications.
The extranet will be run by KangaCom Inc., a joint venture between Toronto-based Bell Nexxia and Cenosis Inc. of Laval, Que. Nexxia will provide the networking services, while Cenosis will handle the application side.
Richard Corbo, president of Cenosis, explained that while the service can be used by any business seeking to move large files, it’s targeted specifically at the graphic arts industry.
“What we will transport are large, colour, digital files that must be printed somewhere,” he said. “At KangaCom we’ll probably transport more in a day than the Royal Bank would in a year.”
Corbo said Cenosis is refocusing its business efforts completely around KangaCom.
Cenosis has been designing software for print media and publishers since 1993.
Nexxia spokesperson Nicolas Poitras explained that the extranet is necessary, because most ISPs place limits on the size of files that can be transmitted over their networks and that even if those limits weren’t in place some large graphics files could take hours to transmit.
The extranet will be sold as a completely managed service.
“We provide everything,” Poitras noted. “So we’d provide both the software and support.”
The software used on the extranet allows users to track their files once they’re sent, informing users when their sent files have been opened and how long they took to get to their destination.
Businesses on the extranet, which is scheduled to launch in April, will pay a per use fee of approximately 30 cents per MB transmitted.
Poitras said the extranet is a completely private broadband offering and includes encryption services.
Once a business is connected to the extranet, it will be able to conduct transactions with any other business on the extranet.
“So it will become a community of interest,” Poitras said.
In the U.S., Nexxia will provide links to the network on a case-by-case basis, using whichever U.S. carrier is able to provide Nexxia with the best deal.
Nexxia can be reached at www.bellnexxia.com and cenosis is at www.cenosis.com.