Telstra blocks hotspot access for Australian iPass customers

Stuart Corner
Monday, 06 November 2006 17:50

Your IT - Home IT

Through an embarrassing retraction by Internode - announcing a deal with global Internet roaming provider, iPass -  it has been revealed that iPass' agreement with Telstra for access to Telstra's 1000 hotspots around Australia specifically excludes Australian users.

No mention of this exclusion was made at the time the deal was announced in August:anyone reading that announcement would reasonably conclude that it applied to all iPass customers.

In a customer bulletin on 6 November Internode announced that it is to offer iPass' global roaming Internet access services to replace the provision of dialup roaming services through GoRemote/GRIC, which has been acquired by iPass.

In this bulletin, Internode said the deal would give its customers "Dialup Internet access points in most other countries ....WiFi Internet Hotspots affiliated with iPass around the world around Australia (In particular, Telstra Wireless Hotspots nationally are now available to Internode customers via iPass)."

Shortly after making the announcement, Internode issued another statement saying that access to the Telstra hotspots would not be included in the iPass service.  It said that its initial statement had been guided by information received from iPass and Telstra in August this year. "We are now advised that this does not include Telstra hotspots, as Telstra have chosen to exclude roaming access from Australian iPass customers into their WiFi facilities."

However the company said that access to other hotspots in Australia is available through iPass and through its own network of hotspots which it intends to continue to expand. Internode customers are not required to register separately for the iPass service: they simply use their existing Internode username and password and the charges are billed to their Internode account.