VoIP specialists Engin and fibre network operator Nextgen Networks have signed an agreement to jointly develop NBN-powered VoIP and data services for Australian business and residential users.
Nextgen boasts Australia’s largest wholesale NBN network and said the agreement would allow its wholesale service provider customers to buy complete VoIP and data bundles, delivered over the new national fibre network, without needing to pay for a direct connection themselves.
The deal will see Engin take its first steps toward becoming an ISP, having also signed on as Nextgen’s latest NBN wholesale customer. Engin said it will offer bundled voice and data services starting at $49.95 for both residential and business customers, and from $64.90 for services that include unlimited local and national calls.
Nextgen managing director Phil Sykes said collaborative efforts between the company and Engin had resulted in Nextgen’s NBN Connect product suite earning kudos as a solution providing wholesale virtual data and voice solutions to NBN-connected areas.
“We have now enabled multiple service providers to rapidly and cost effectively enter the market with competitive retail plans,” he said.
Engin spokesman Scott McKeon said the consumer side of the business continued to generate the biggest returns with around 40,000 customers now signed up with the VoIP provider. The company also offered 35,000 services to some 8,000 business customers.
Helping to service these customers, McKeon said, was a greatly trimmed-down reseller channel. While it had as many as 500 partners listed on the books at one stage, the company had less than a third that number today, he said.
Last year Seven West Media, owner of the channel Seven TV network and other media assets, extended its part stake in Engin to full ownership. In February Seven sold its WiMax wireless broadband business vividwireless (created by the staggered acquisition from 2007 of then named Unwired ) to Optus for $230 million.
-1.jpg&w=100&c=1&s=0)
.png&w=100&c=1&s=0)
