G9 greenlights investment plan

THE consortium of nine Telstra competitors known as the G9 group has confirmed it will lodge a bid with the Federal Government to build a national broadband network.

The G9 has given bid plans the go-ahead following Government’s recent announcement that it will conduct an open and competitive bidding process, and legislate to enable a new broadband network for built-up metro and regional areas.

“G9 CEOs have met to consider the Government’s announcement and we were unanimous in our view that the G9 should proceed to prepare a bid to build such a network,” iiNet chief executive Michael Malone said.

“The details of participation by individual G9 members – for example as equity participants, as launch customers, or as supporters – will be determined as the bid is finalised,” Mr Malone said.

“The G9 has consistently argued that Australia needs a new high speed broadband network – and a competitive market structure to protect and nurture the interests of Australian consumers and businesses,” Primus Telecom chief executive Ravi Bhatia said.

“This is the way to ensure the most rapid take up of services, the greatest degree of innovation and the lowest possible pricing.”

The G9 statement makes clear that Telstra is not the only bidder that wants regulatory certainty. The G9 wants to make certain it understands how Telstra’s proposed regulatory changes would work, and how Telstra might leverage its existing infrastructure to gain advantage in the bidding process.

“In the last twelve months the G9 has worked carefully to develop a detailed model which meets both objectives, and we now stand ready to build on our existing work to develop a compelling bid,” Optus chief executive Paul O’Sullivan said.

“As a first step, we look forward to working with the Minister's Expert Taskforce to identify the issues that the Government will need to consider in assessing competing bids, including the regulatory changes sought by bidders, and the extent to which each bid leverages existing fast access infrastructure investments where appropriate,” Mr O’Sullivan said.

“We expect that our input will assist the Expert Taskforce in its task of preparing detailed bidding guidelines, which is a necessary first step before parties can finalise their bids.”

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NetRegistry ramps up SME hosted services

INTERNET services firm NetRegistry has acquired the assets of domain name and web hosting company PlanetDomain from Primus Telecommunications for more than $8 million.

With the addition of the PlanetDomain business, NetRegistry chief executive Larry Bloch says the company now dominates the Australian market for domain name registrations with 27 per cent of the market.

The combined business now boasts more than 250,000 domestic and international small and medium sized (SME) customers, Mr Bloch said. PlanetDomain is profitable and would continue to be managed by its current staff in Melbourne.

Mr Bloch NetRegistry planned to pursue other acquisitions of companies that provide hosted application to large numbers of small businesses in Australia.

“Our strategy is to acquire relationships with SME’s at the start of their online journey – buying a domain name,” Mr Bloch said. “We then apply our proven skills in customer service to build trust and loyalty, gradually increasing the breadth of subscription services provided.

“We are still at the early stage of a long wave of innovation in the provision of online services to businesses. Our growing market position places us well to dominate the provision of online business services to Australian SME’s for many years to come,” he said.

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