Telstra signs first 3G wholesale customer

After going to market in January, Telstra has signed up its first 3G wholesale customer — iTelecom Wholesale.

Telstra CEO David Thodey last month hinted that the company had signed its first 3G wholesale customer and today the telco revealed that its first recruit is wholesale aggregator iTelecom Wholesale. The company offers fixed-line voice, GSM mobile and broadband services, and already partners with Telstra, Optus and NBN Co. iTelecom Wholesale's product suite has now been expanded to include 3G mobile through wholesaling Telstra's 3G.

iTelecom Wholesale's chief technology officer Bruno Giger said in a statement that the company opted for Telstra 3G wholesale because it was a "robust and reliable service".

"This will underpin our Mobile Virtual Network Enabler (MVNE) platform and provide a Mobile Virtual Network Operator (MVNO) solution to retail service providers," Giger said in a statement.

ZDNet Australia asked iTelecom Wholesale whether any customers had signed up to the new service from the company but no response had been received at the time of writing.

For now Telstra only offers 3G wholesale as a post-paid product; however, the company plans to expand this to include prepaid later this year.

It has been a slow entry for Telstra into the wholesale 3G market. Optus and Vodafone already have a number of contracts in place with major resellers like iiNet, Internode, Dodo and Red Bull. iiNet CEO Michael Malone admitted last month that Telstra had approached iiNet as a potential wholesaler, but Malone said he had no interest in reselling what was "yesterday's technology" while Telstra kept its long-term evolution (LTE) "4G" network to itself.