Dodo thinks NBN wholesale
Telecommunications company Dodo's CEO Larry Kestelman has said that he thinks it will be difficult for small players to operate on the National Broadband Network (NBN), but the company would consider becoming a wholesaler for the network.
"[The NBN] will definitely open up more competition, but it will still be difficult for the small players to be competitive; it's still to be seen how the whole backhaul scenario will play out," Kestelman told ZDNet Australia. "I just think it's got to do with the structure for interconnection and how many points for interconnection need to be done and how the final wholesale model looks. We're talking to the NBN [Co] and we'll be in a position to deliver competition."
"We've done wholesale before, we were one of the first ones to do it [and] we're certainly considering as part of our model to become an aggregator," he said.
With telcos such as Telstra, Optus and iiNet all having existing infrastructure, Kestelman believed Dodo was in the perfect position to join onto the NBN early.
"We're the largest non-infrastructure player so we're the perfect partner for NBN [Co] to kick this off. We've got no stranded assets [and] we've got no assets of our own, so all our clients can be transferred onto NBN with no issues," Kestelman said.
Dodo was not one of the first companies to jump onto the NBN bandwagon in Tasmania; however, Kestelman said that Dodo moving into Tasmania via the new network was only a matter of time.
"We have spoken to NBN [Co] about it and we are currently working very closely with them to decide at which stage we start testing their systems and processes," he said.
Yesterday, the telecommunications company launched a 3-terabyte (TB) ADSL2+ plan priced at just five cents lower than its unlimited plan at $39.85. Kestelman said that by doing this he hoped it might encourage the other internet service providers (ISPs) to stop putting download limits on broadband plans in the future.
"It's really more to bring a bit of clarity, to call out the difference. I think when you start talking about numbers like 1TB, I think it's a joke. We're still talking about peak and off peak," he said. "I just think people need to have a serious look. 1TB is a lot of data."
Kestelman said that reports of users on unlimited plans downloading upwards of 6TB to 7TB a month may be accurate, but he didn't believe it wouldn't last in the long term.
"If there's some people that are downloading 6 to 7 terabytes, then that's what they need [and] that's what they should get and others should download less and it all should even out in the end," he said. "I don't believe people are out there downloading for the hell of downloading. Even if it's high in the first few months, then we as ISPs need to provide what the customers need."
"I think after a while, there's only so much things you can download in the world."
Kestelman said that recent comments from iiNet CEO Michael Malone that there were only three and a half telcos left, which encouraged him to get vocal and put out the new plan.
"Those are pretty big statements and I thought it was up to me to take the fight to these guys," he said. "That's what a true competitor and a disruptor to the big boys needs to do; we need to push the boundaries of what can and can't be done and sometimes sacrifice the fat profit margins that a public company has to deliver."