Optus signs Telcoinabox for 3G mobile resell deal worth $60M

Under the agreement, Telcoinabox will wholesale services to its small to medium enterprises (SME) customer base from August 2008.

According to Telcoinabox’s general manger, Paul Line the five-year multi-million dollar contract is anticipated to generate $80 – $100 million in retail mobile and data business for Telcoinabox.

“As the wholesaler, Telcoinabox is always assessing carriers and suppliers and we have had ongoing dialogue with various telco providers. Our managing director also use to work for Optus and had quite a few contacts,” he said.

According to Line dialogue between Optus and Telcoinabox was started in August last year and it has taken the telecommunications provider a while to come to the table.

“It's taken a while for the discussions to get started. The wholesale market is a strange one, both Telstra and Hutchinson don’t offer resales of their 3G mobile network to channel partners. Optus had a strict offering in place and there were a lot of negotiations going back and forth,” said Line.

Despite Line’s comments to CRN in early March about hoping to resell Telstra’s 3G mobile services, Line said going with Optus was the best decision in the long run.

“In the short term we may not be able to resale Telstra’s 3G services, but we have not been given indication that the telco will give the go ahead for channel partners to resell its services. Given our industry knowledge this may not happen for another two years and we can't wait for that to happen because 3G is hitting a growth space. We are assured by Optus commitment to roll out more of its 3G network over the next 18 months,” he said.

Telcoinabox around 100 service providers nationwide that service predominantly the SME market in the $500 - $2,000 per month spend category.

Line believes that as small enterprises come to the end of their telecommunications contracts over the next 6 – 12 months they will be reviewing their options, and this includes assessing the option for 3G mobile.

“I think this deal benefits everyone involved. In the past our channel partners and frachisers are coming up against better capped plans from their competitors, now these guys can offer deals that other competitors are offering,” said Line.

Anton Gain, Optus Wholesale sales director said Optus Wholesale begins another year with a strong committed focus on GSM mobile services, especially 3G as we expand our network to provide wireless broadband services via High Speed Packet Access (HSPA) to more areas.

“As a strong supporter of the wholesale community we look forward to working with our customer base who focus specifically in the SME market,” claimed Gain.

Telcoinabox also recently acquired Aussiedial’s Voice over IP (VoIP) and ADSL national network, National Telephone Networks, to expand its existing infrastructure and support its services providers’ demand for more Internet Protocol (IP) services.

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