Optus to turn away customers

From 25 June, the nation's number two telco Optus will no longer sell fixed-line telephony and broadband services to consumer customers outside the planned range of its own network.

The SingTel subsidiary has resold Telstra's fixed-line and ADSL broadband services nationwide for years. However, Optus today said that strategy wasn't profitable enough, and it preferred to focus on its own fixed networks instead.

Optus currently has two substantial fixed access networks -- its HFC cable asset built in the late 1990s, and its ADSL network, which currently covers some 204 telephone exchanges, with a further 136 scheduled to be built in the near future.

"From 25 June 2007, Optus will only sell Telstra resale products to consumers in areas where it intends to build its Unbundled Local Loop (ULL) network," an Optus spokesperson told ZDNet Australia today.

"Optus sales channels will cease selling Telstra resale products to new consumer customers in all other areas. Local Access Resale and Resale DSL are low margin businesses, with almost all of the revenue being paid to Telstra."

The move will cut Optus's total addressable market for fixed-line products down to around 4.3 million homes and businesses (including HFC), although it still sells other products nationwide, such as mobile data and telephony and satellite services.

Optus will continue to support all existing resale customers, and it will continue to offer the Telstra resale products everywhere until 25 June. Meanwhile, the telco will continue to migrate customers onto its own network where possible.

Businesses are expected to be unaffected by Optus's decision.