Austar, Unwired & Soul team for regional broadband net

Stuart Corner
Friday, 12 May 2006 08:21

Business IT - Networking

Austar, Unwired and Soul have formed a three-way alliance to seek Connect Australia funding for a nationwide network to provide broadband services in regional Australia and to be built from a combination of Soul's long haul network, its DSLAMs and Unwired and Austar's wireless broadband networks.
The three are not proposing an alternative or competitor to Telstra's FTTN plan which is focussed on mainly metro areas, but rather a complementary network.

The three companies say the proposed network could be deployed quickly and at a significantly lower cost than fibre-based proposals. They have formed an alliance, AUSalliance, to develop a co-ordinated business plan and to submit a joint bid for Connect Australia funding based on the plan.

Austar and Unwired’s spectrum licenses cover 95 percent of the population, and they already have plans to offer roaming services for users moving between their respective areas. Austar has announced plans to invest $50 million in WiMAX networks in regional Australia, which it expected would be able to serve 750,000 homes in 25 regional locations by the end of 2007.

Soul has the largest independent regional access network which is a fully converged voice, video and data network with 280 points of presence as well as a capital city capability. It is also midway through a 70 exchange roll out of Nokia DSLAMs into regional exchanges to provide ADSL2+ services.

The Government has announced $1.1 billion in funding for regional communications under its Connect Australia program, but unlike previous initiatives such as HiBIS, has indicated that this is likely to go to only a handful of large projects

Austar CEO, John Porter said: "Minister Coonan challenged the industry with Connect Australia to think big, to think partnership and co-operation, with a bigger broadband picture in mind than our individual commercial aspirations.

Deanne Weir, Austar's group director corporate development and legal affairs, said: "The minister has been talking about people forming big national alliances and this alliance is a response to that."

She declined to say how much of the $1.1 billion AUSalliance was bidding for. "It is a work in progress we have to see what the next stage from the government is."

Porter added: [The Government] is looking for sustainable networks beyond the initial funding. The lesson from Networking the Nation is that funding small isolated networks is not sustainable.

Although the three operators could be competing at the retail level they could also be in competition with many others. Weir said: "we are looking to wholesale on a national basis so there is opportunity for retail competition from a whole range of players.

The alliance has developed a business plan and submitted an initial proposal to DCITA. It proposes that any network built with Connect Australia funding would offer wholesale services on "sensible commercial terms" to any "qualifying national or local retail provider". Wholesale 'white label' and 'bit-stream' services would both be offered.

Funding would be primarily for alternative access networks: backhaul networks would be funded only where existing black spots prevent commercially competitive solutions."