T3's iBurst customers sold to BigAir

In a statement issued on Wednesday, BigAir said the additional customers would take its iBurst numbers up to 8,500. iBurst is sold as a wholesale solution by Commander subsidiary Personal Broadband Australia and offers speeds of up to 1Mbps in most Australian capital cities.

BigAir claims to be the largest iBurst reseller. The carrier also maintains its own mainly fixed wireless network and utilises that of wireless carrier Unwired.

A spokesperson for Pacific Internet told ZDNet Australia on Thursday via e-mail the company was still partnering with PBA to offer wireless broadband.

"While T3 (bought by Pacific Internet late last year) is a business-focused voice specialist, the company had sales channel relationships with some retail outlets to sell wireless broadband plans to residential customers," the spokesperson said.

Pacific did not want to pursue "inefficient retail/residential sales channels for T3," the company said, because of the telco's focus on the business space.

"The wireless customers who have been acquired by BigAir were not strategically aligned with Pacific Internet's market approach in Australia and couldn't be easily integrated or matched to existing Pacific Internet wireless plans," they continued.

"After substantial analysis, it made more sense to sell these customers to BigAir."

The spokesperson noted Pacific did have residential customers Down Under, but they were primarily professionals on high-end plans.