Strencom

The company is currently looking at expanding its service into Dublin and later into Limerick.

"The level of dissatisfaction with the service provided by current ISPs is very high and we have been able to capitalise on this," said Tim Murphy, managing director of Strencom.

The company which started in January is aiming at to have 30 major clients by the end of this year.

Its current clients include Vistech, Raidtec, and Qumas in Cork.

"We are taking business from the big providers like Esat, Eircom and Worldcom because our whole network is based in Munster and our levels of service are higher," said Murphy.

In a move to improve reliability for its customers the company is going to develop multiple connections between Dublin, where the traffic is routed to, and Cork.

Currently companies in Munster are relying on one link to Dublin service providers for their Internet connectivity so if that one link goes down there is no backup he said.

Murphy said if the company were to expand around Ireland it would have build nodes in each city and would need funding of less than IEP1 million.

"We have been approached by a number of private investors with a view to funding us but we are not looking at raising any in the short term," he said.

The company is looking to expand gradually for the moment and Murphy said Strencom has been profitable since the first quarter of this year.

Strencom has been receiving a lot of repeat business and aims to be one stop shop for Internet.

The company also provides consultancy services on data and voice services to clients.

Murphy said the average size of the contract won by the company was around IEP8,000.

UTV Internet may move into the Munster region offering Internet services but Murphy said he did not see them as a major threat.

He said Strencom might even be able to get new business from such a move by providing services to the company.