Australia's newest carrier eCOM Communications is trailblazing into unchartered waters with plans to deploy Australia's first national Voice over DSL network.
VoDSL goes one step further than Telsta's recently rolled out ADSL services by transmitting voice as well as data and carrying 20 calls simultaneously with high-speed data over a single telephone line.
"VoDSL is exciting because it breaks Telstra's monopoly," eCOM Communications CEO Stephen Conlon said.
Telstra currently charges its small to medium business (SME) customers about AU$25 per month to rent a phone line, with some SMEs requiring up to twelve lines, according to Conlon.
"VoDSL will provision all of these over the one line," Conlon said.
eCOM believes it would be cannibalistic for Telstra's existing business for the telco heavyweight to offer VoDSL.
"We think [Telstra will] react, but we don't think they will initially," Conlon added.
eCOM will implement Nortel Networks' VoDSL broadband solution and target SMEs with bundled voice and Internet packages for a monthly fee and useage charge.
"Although we're working with other agencies in other parts of the world, in Australia this is the first of its kind," Nortel Networks' President Australia and New Zealand, Reg Bird, said.
eCOM may not have exclusivity to Nortel's technology but it does have "the forward advantage on it," Bird said.
The local startup is currently in negotiations with Telstra to install its equipment in more than 200 of the telco giant's exchanges, over a three to four year timeframe.
"Telstra have been cooperative to some extent," eCOM chairman James Dominguez said, "but nothing happens very quickly there".
"This will be a very interesting test for Telstra as to how they respond to VoDSL."
eCOM's VoDSL network will cost about AU$200 million all up.
Currently privately funded, the company is talking to a number of potential investors about future funding and said it plans to launch its IPO in the final quarter of 2001.
"We've had a very strong positive response from a number of investment banks," eCOM's Dominguez said.
The present backers that invested the seed capital into eCOM's venture "are keen to take up more investment," he added.
eCOM believes it will have 300-400 customers on each exchange within three to four years - about 10-15 percent of those likely to switch over to this technology, according to Conlon.
"We're still only trialing the technology, it'll be a while before it gets revenue," Conlon added.
