Internode gets mobile voice back on track

Internode has said that it hopes to offer 3G mobile voice services by the third quarter of the year, explaining that it hadn't brought them online last year as planned due to "competing internal development priorities".

At the end of 2009, Internode product manager Jim Kellett had said that the carrier planned to resell Optus mobile phone services to its customers in 2010. The company already offered mobile broadband via Optus; however, more than a year after Kellett's announcement the mobile voice product has still not yet surfaced.

When asked what had happened, Internode managing director Simon Hackett said that the project had been delayed because of other products.

"In 2010 Internode was intending to release a mobile voice offering to the market; however, some other competing internal development priorities (including the development and release of the Internode FetchTV service — now available) resulted in the 3G voice project being deferred," he said in a statement.

The mobile broadband offering had also received "significant upgrades in the last few months", the MD said.

However, mobile voice is now back on Internode's dance card.

"At this time, we are well advanced on the work toward the release of our 3G voice and data offering, running over the Optus platform, and we currently expect this to be released to the market early in Q3 2011," he said.