Energy company Enron pioneered the idea of internet bandwidth trading – the buying and selling of spare communications capacity – back in 2000. Like its creator, the idea crashed and burnt a couple of years later. Now, a new Australian company, intabank, has revived the concept.

Intabank allows companies needing additional, short-term connectivity to purchase it from others with excess capacity, rather than buying from service providers that normally require a long-term commitment. It is the brainchild of chief executive Andrew Sjoquist, and sales and marketing director David McGrath, co-founders of Australian cloud provider ASE.