Vodafone Hutchison Australia (VHA) has taken its first steps to providing consumer fixed-line broadband services by joining the mainland National Broadband Network (NBN) trials.
In April, NBN Co announced 12 ISPs signed up to provided services for the five trial site with services to be switched on in Armidale, NSW, initially. Participants included AAPT, AARNet, Exetel, Internode, Optus, Telstra and iPrimus.
Kiama in NSW, Wilunga in SA, Townsville in Queensland and Brunswick in Victoria were the other trial sites.
VHA announced the news at its Annual General Meeting (AGM) in North Sydney. Customers living within the Armidale test area will be contacted by the telco with a free fixed-line broadband service trial offer.
“The NBN trials are a great opportunity for us to learn how the NBN will complement our existing mobile network,” VHA CEO, Nigel Dews, said.
“We’re also working with NBN Co to develop products and test the complementary nature of high-speed fibre as interconnection points to support mobile transmission or our base station access.”
The reason VHA was late to join the NBN trial was because it wanted to sort out its own network woes first, according to Dews.
The company’s position as a new entrant to the residential fixed-line market had to be considered as well.
“For us, both the retail trial and base station access solution was important and now we’re comfortable at both of those progressing,” he said.
Earlier this year, VHA was plagued by negative press resulting from customer furore and the threat of a class action amid allegations of poor network service coverage.
This prompted VHA to invest $1 billion on network upgrades using Huawei base station technology.
More to follow.
