Telstra and NBN deal positive move for resellers

Resellers stand to benefit the most from the NBN due to the Federal Government’s $11 billion Telstra deal.

Hostech executive chairman, Peter Kazacos, said Telstra resellers would be able to bring products to the market much quicker like 4G and faster mobile broadband services.

“We need that sort of infrastructure to be competitive globally, even though the opposition may not think so,” he said.

As a Telstra shareholder, Kazacos said, the Government had finally given the telco giant, fair value for its infrastructure.

But one major concern is what will happen if there was a change in Government, particularly with the looming Federal Election and Liberal’s crusade to scrap the NBN.

“Does it change the agreement? Will it potentially damage Telstra and other companies that depend on this [NBN]?” Kazacos said. “People would not want to invest in this till they know the certainty in Government. If the Liberal party is saying they’re going to pull it, then why would you as a private company start to invest in this now?

“The Liberal party need to provide some comfort one way or the other on this.” Another bone of contention was areas of regional Australia that still lack any network coverage.

“Is the government going to invest in that now? Who is going to do the pieces that aren’t there yet?” he said.

Wholesaler Telcoinabox managing director, Damian Kay, said the deal presented the ability for wholesalers to strategically plan its NBN strategy.

“Resellers can start to work out how they’re going to play in this space,” Kay said. “We’ve got an opportunity to capitalise on it. We can start to plan what we want to do, if we want to use Telstra as a backhaul, and so on.”

If Telstra and NBN couldn’t reach an agreement, it would have caused a lot of grief for wholesalers and a lot of money in time spent managing the migration to the NBN network, he said.

“That would have been diabolical and it would have cost us hundreds of thousands of dollars,” Kay said.

Separating Telstra wholesale and retail would allow more innovative and IP based products to the fray, Kay said.

“Telstra wholesalers can start developing products for channel partners because they won’t the restrictions in place on Telstra retail. It’s very positive and we’ll start to see things change.”

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