Phillip Britt (Aussie Broadband)
Aussie Broadband has signed an agreement with wholesale network infrastructure operator OptiComm to offer fibre to the premises (FTTP) services to residential customers on its network.
Through the deal, the telco will be able to provide its services on OptiComm’s network, which Aussie claimed is the largest private competitor to the National Broadband Network (NBN), in addition to those it provides on the NBN.
This opens up Aussie to the potential of providing services to over 120,000 additional premises, with OptiComm’s remit being the connection of mostly new or recently developed estates.
Under the agreement, the telco will offer the same unlimited plans on OptiComm’s network as it does on the NBN. However, its 100GB and 50GB plans are not available on the new network.
Phillip Britt, managing director of Aussie, said the deal will grow the business’ fibre footprint.
“We are looking forward to working with OptiComm to deliver FTTP services to existing and prospective residential customers. We believe this partnership will complement Aussie’s existing fibre network expansion across Australia,” he said.
Paul Cross, CEO of OptiComm, added that recent demand for internet services through its network has significantly increased throughout the coronavirus pandemic.
“We’ve seen our downstream network utilisation settle at 10 per cent above its pre-COVID level, with its upward trend still continuing, particularly in Victoria,” he said.
This deal follows the acquisition of OptiComm by Uniti Group, the company formerly known as Uniti Wireless, for $407 million cash and 84 million shares valued at around $125 million during the announcement of the acquisition in June.
Meanwhile, in late May Aussie opened its NBN portal for service managers, claiming at the time that it was the first to do so at the level of the portal's scale.
