Unwired makes court undertakings on Telstra ADSL reach

Wireless broadband provider Unwired has undertaken in a brief court hearing this morning not to repeat representations that Telstra ADSL covers only 75 percent of Sydney.

Unwired told the Federal Court in Sydney this morning -- during legal proceedings initiated by Telstra over claims by the wireless player about the telco giant's ADSL coverage in Sydney -- that it "would not repeat the representations that Telstra's ADSL coverage was only 75 percent".

It would also "give Telstra five business days prior notice before making any representations that Telstra's ADSL is less than 95.8 percent in [the] Sydney metropolitan area or 85 percent nationally".

BigPond managing director Justin Milne said in a brief statement he welcomed the Unwired undertakings.

"Our coverage in Sydney is 95.8 percent and growing. All we ask is that Unwired tell the truth and not mislead," Milne said.

The hearing before Justice Peter Hely lasted for about an hour from 10:15am.

Unwired chief executive officer David Spence said in a statement following the hearing that "Telstra's ADSL coverage claims have changed dramatically over the past few weeks and we have undertaken to give Telstra the opportunity to respond if we do decide to make any comment on its coverage.

Our customers choose us regardless of whether they can get ADSL or not. So the question of Telstra's coverage, whatever it may be, is not a real issue for us.

"Telstra is clearly sensitive about its ADSL coverage but we believe its customers would be happier if it spent its money improving its network instead of on lawyers. In the meantime we will continue to attract Telstra's unhappy customers," Spence said.

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Talkback 4 comments

    i severly doubt that Telstra's ...Anonymous -- 09/02/05

    i severly doubt that Telstra's ADSL is available to 95.8 percent of people in sydney. considering nrims etc i would guess 60-75%

    Gotta hand it to JM, the Mad H ...Anonymous -- 09/02/05

    Gotta hand it to JM, the Mad Hatter's Tea Party reigns supreme. Have to agree with the CEO of Unwired when he said Tel$tra would be better off spending it's money on the network, instead of wasting it on petty court cases.
    Case in point, yesterday...Many thousands locked out of Tel$tra's Broadband system, which includes all the users on other ISP's who depend on Tel$tra, who were unable to login, because there was No backup power system.

    Penny pinching again guys??

    A clear case of bureaucracy gone mad.

    Of course this all depends on ...Anonymous -- 09/02/05

    Of course this all depends on how Telstra defines 'coverage'.

    Could it be that ADSL is available at the exchange and so the entire area is considered 'covered'.

    Where in fact many of the households are unable to get ADSL due to 'incompatible' equipment or lack of capacity or even range (lives too far from an exchange).

    I am precisely trying to find ...Anonymous -- 18/02/05

    I am precisely trying to find the figures of overall broadband networks coverage in Australia at the moment (DSL + cable + wireless).
    I think those statistics should be available for the public to see and regularly updated (ACCC only publishes broadband take-up and growth).
    Has anyone any idea if and where they are available ? That would also settle those kind of disputes.

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