Andrew Colley | August 08, 2008
TELSTRA has finally lifted the commercial barricade around its ADSL2+ service and hooked its first wholesale customer to the long-protected broadband service.
ASX-listed People Telecom has extended its $200 million network services contract with Telstra's wholesale division to become the first company to resell the carrier's ADSL2+ broadband service, as reported in The Australian today.People Telecom chief executive John Stanton said it expected to make the services available to customers from September.
It has around 37,000 subscribers, primarily in urban areas.
Until now, Telstra has only sold its slower ADSL broadband services under wholesale arrangements. The policy has been a source of tension between the carrier and the federal Government.
Mr Stanton said that the company had been negotiating with Telstra and upgrading its core network to accommodate the new broadband service since June.
Industry sources have said that it would only make its services available to customers prepared to bend to onerous conditions defined by Telstra. Customers would be required to enter long-term agreements with Telstra and purchase backhaul from the carrier as part of the resale agreement.
At the time, Telstra didn't shy away from the assertions. A spokesman for the carrier said that it would only offer the service to customers that met its "commercial criteria".
Mr Stanton was today guarded about discussing over the commercial terms of the contract with Telstra but conceded that the company had been required to purchase additional backhaul to accommodate the service - most of it from Telstra.
"We worked with them to make sure our underlying network to ensure it can match the potential of the ADSL2+.
"If you put ADSL2+ on a network that can't handle it then you're not going to get the speed or the throughput - you're effectively strangling the service," Mr Stanton said.
It's understood that Telstra is in negotiations with other second-tier internet providers.
Telstra's main internet rivals, Optus, iiNet and Internode, have yet to announce ADSL2+ resale agreements with Telstra.