NBN an opportunity for wholesalers: Telstra

James Riley
Tuesday, 13 October 2009 11:25

IT Policy - Government Tech Policy

Predictions of the demise of Telstra Wholesale in the face of an open access, wholesale-only National Broadband Network are vastly premature, the company’s new wholesale chief Paul Geason said.

Speaking at the Comms Day Congress in Melbourne the Telstra Wholesale group managing director Paul Geason said the NBN was just one link in a more complex services supply chain.

Geason said the Telstra Wholesale was well placed to sell next-generation wholesale products and managed services, differentiating on customer service and its depth of engineering experience.

"There is little doubt – in the new NBN Co world – wholesaling will be a critical part of the market structure," Geason said.

There were opportunities for the company in engineering and the provision of core networks, in content distributions platforms and customer management systems.

"These drivers provide Telstra Wholesale with a fantastic opportunity to transform itself from a traditional high-volume product wholesaler to a next generation communications product wholesaler and managed solutions provider, leveraging our experience, and knowledge of networks and management systems," he said.

Just 100 days into his new role at the head of the Telstra Wholesale operation, Geason said the communications debate had been thoroughly dominated in recent months by NBN related issues – but said much of the commentary misunderstood how the new fibre network would impact the company.

He says Telstra may compete with NBN Co in the provision of backhaul services by providing value-added management services to service retailers.

"Many have been thinking that there will be only one wholesaler and it will be NBN Co and all retail service providers will be buying the same service from them directly," Geason said.
 
"That may be OK if you are a full service provider and your business model is to combine the NBN Co layer 2 bit-stream service with your infrastructure, systems and resources.

"But that’s not what every retail service provider wants, or needs. Some Service Providers want a network provider to deliver an end-to-end retail service – not just the last mile.

"They want to purchase backhaul, traffic management, aggregation, authentication, voice interconnection, IP capacity and maybe even applications and content - while they focus on customer service and marketing," Geason said.

The differentiator in the new NBN environment would be customer service, and deep technical expertise, he said.

Telstra has backed NBN Co executive chairman Mike Quigley's call for service providers to join in Communications Alliance working groups to sort out technology and interconnect issues, and said Australia should be watching offshore forums to make sure Australia’s next generation networks adopt international standards for interoperability.

Geason also used the platform to voice Telstra's opposition to the Government's proposed telecommunications regulatory reforms, and took a broad swipe at the ACCC for pursuing new access pricing models for the copper network "at this time of transition."