Melbourne, November 29 2006. Diversified telecommunications services provider M2 Telecommunications Group Limited (ASX: MTU) has continued to secure additional wholesale customers from within the Australian telecommunications industry, having recently finalised commercial agreements with a further 3 companies, including fast growing Queensland telco Red Media Solutions, business telecommunications provider National Telecoms Group and established mobile sales and marketing company Mobile Communications Brokers (MCB).
M2’s wholesale business, operated though its Wholesale Telecommunications Services Pty Ltd (WTS) subsidiary was launched in June 2006, following M2’s appointment by Optus as the exclusively endorsed aggregator/enabler of wholesale Optus mobile services. The agreement enables other telecommunications companies, ISPs and aspiring Mobile Virtual Network Operators (MVNO’s) to gain wholesale access to the Optus mobile network, enabled by WTS.
The addition of these new wholesale customers builds upon a solid base established in the 6 months since the announcement of the M2/Optus alliance, including Dodo, Australia’s fifth largest Internet service provider, Smartcharge Australia, E Direct (trading as VIP-Tel Mobile) and Telecom One.
The interest in M2’s mobile wholesale offering amongst prospective wholesale customers has been heightened over recent weeks with its pending release of a full suite of voice and data services on the new Optus third generation (“3G”) mobile network. M2 expects to go “live” with Optus 3G in early December, which, outside of the network carriers themselves, will make M2 the first telco in Australia enabled with 3G.
M2’s Managing Director and CEO, Vaughan Bowen said; “WTS has exceeded our expectations in terms of the volume of enquiry received from telecom services providers and the calibre of wholesale customers which have elected to move forward with us. Our (Optus) mobile wholesale proposition is compelling on a number of levels, including the strength of the commercials, access to the 3G network, our tailored wholesale packages for both consumer and business markets, the short lead-time to enable MVNO’s and competitive wholesale plans for Blackberry and other mobile data services.”
Branko Brkic, Managing Director of Red Media said of the decision to choose M2 as its wholesale mobile provider; “We needed to be armed with a strong mobile proposition to complement our established fixed line and data service offerings and found the WTS commercial proposition to be competitive relative to other mobile wholesale offerings and the short lead time for us to have access to 3G was something we could not obtain elsewhere.”
M2 expects to secure further wholesale customers between now and Christmas and is forecasting the volume of connections generated through its WTS operation to continue to steadily increase as its customers gain momentum with their mobile offerings. After less than 6 months since launch, M2’s WTS business unit is already making positive contributions to earnings. It is in the second half of the 2006/7 financial year that WTS is forecast to generate significant month-on-month earnings, as appointed wholesale customers bed in and others are added during the coming months.
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