People Telecom to resell Vodafone mobile services

Stuart Corner
Monday, 25 August 2008 05:56

IT Industry - Strategy

People Telecom will resell Vodafone mobile services under a mobile virtual network operator arrangement that will enable it put its own brand on the service, construct its own pricing plans and wholesale the service to ISPs and other telcos.

The move was foreshadowed by iTWire in July when we reported that People Telecom - which had relied on reselling Optus for the mobile services component of its portfolio for the past six years - would switch to taking its Optus services through Optus wholesaler, M2 Telecommunications in preparation for offering services from other carriers. A similar deal for 2G services with Telstra is expected soon. People Telecom has already been offering Vodafone BlackBerry enterprise services to its customers.

People Telecom said the deal was "a core element of [our] multipartner MVNO strategy...[and] will provide Vodafone with a important new growth engine for greater indirect acquisition of SME customers...It will enable People Telecom to broker its own wholesale agreements for Vodafone mobile services direct to ISPs and 'tier three' carriers throughout Australia."

People CEO, John Stanton, said the deal would give the company "stronger operating margins and a platform to expand both mobile and data services."