As a journalist at Australian Reseller News:
ASX-listed telecoms company, People Telecom, has signed a $21 million agreement with Optus to continue to provide mobile telephone services to new and existing customers.
The 18-month deal builds on a previous five-year relationship which saw People Telecom delivering Optus services as a wholesaler as well as directly to businesses. With the new underlying rates and terms and conditions, People Telecom CEO, John Stanton, said it hoped to grow its product and feature set. This would include launching additional third-generation (3G) mobile voice and data services this year.
"This agreement allows us to offer 3G services, which typically haven't been available to resellers in the Australian market so far," he said. "There were customers who were particularly looking for 3G that we couldn't service today, so this is an exciting new development for us."
People Telecom currently boasts more than 15,000 mobile subscribers. It chalked up 16 per cent growth in its mobile telephone business last year. Stanton attributed around half of the telco's revenue to a "very strong dealer channel".
While he did not expect the renewed Optus agreement to change the way the company currently went to market, Stanton noted that People Telecom's new offerings would open up its wholesale channel. He was also interested in recruiting more partners.
"We're working hard on a number of opportunities right now to expand the range of wholesale customers that we have," he said.
The telco is currently in the process of rolling out new capped plans, business plans and retail plans with a range of discounts for bundling, email, and other services.
Besides Optus, People Telecom maintains agreements with Telstra, AAPT, PowerTel and NexGen.
