iiNet acquires Melbourne ISP Supernerd

Begins migration of 4000 customers.

iiNet has started migrating about 4000 residential customers from Melbourne ISP Supernerd, acquired earlier this month, to its own network.

Supernerd customers began receiving emails from iiNet customer care staff notifying them of the acquisition, which took place at the beginning of September for an undisclosed amount.

They would be offered similar plans on iiNet's network as part of the migration.

The Supernerd website remained functional at the time of writing but appeared to have been taken down following questions from iTnews.

New customers were being redirected to iiNet's website.

iiNet integrations manager Rick Staniforth told Supernerd subscribers on the Whirlpool user forum this week that they would be moved progressively across to iiNet's own networks over the coming weeks, "depending on the current connection type".

They would retain their existing email address and inbox.

The biggest hurdle to migration appeared to be moving Supernerd subscribers on Optus' wholesale ports to iiNet's own DSLAM network where available, or off-net Telstra wholesale ports.

The latter migration would come at a delay to users.

"Because this work is a little more complex than what's required for a normal DSL service, these services will be moved a little later than others," an iiNet representative said on the forum.

Supernerd was the consumer-based sister company of enterprise service provider Australian Internet Services, both of which were led by managing director Steven Wong.

Wong told iTnews the sale came as part of a two-year realignment decision to drop its consumer business in favour of business sales and service.

Both businesses have been in operation since 1996.

"We found we were essentially running two types of businesses and we were unable to provide the highest level of service to the customers of either business," Wong said.

"This was a great opportunity to sell the consumer business to a reputable business to hopefully increase the customer satisfaction.

"We can really move forward with improved service levels for our corporate customers and go out there to compete with the big boys for whole ICT solutions and enterprise networks."

An iiNet spokesman said the company was still looking for new "business opportunities."

It had, to date, purchased Westnet, Netspace and the consumer arm of AAPT's business.

However, only the Westnet brand was slated to stay, with the other brand names expected to be discontinued once customer migration onto the iiNet network was complete.