Comverge joins fibre network wholesale ranks

Greenfields fibre builder Comverge will start offering open-access wholesale services in new housing estates after being granted a national carrier license.

The systems integrator had previously designed, built and maintained fibre networks in gated resorts and marina estates, but left it to the body corporate, strata or other overseeing body to either run the network or attract retail service providers.

Marketing manager Dane Hansen said Comverge's networks would be open to anyone that wanted to sell retail internet or other services into the estates.

"We'll effectively be the wholesaler of access to the community," Hansen said,

"We'll be responsible for resident's services and for inviting RSP [retail service provider] access into the estates and from our perspective the more [RSPs] the merrier."

The move brought Comverge into a market that included Opticomm, Telstra Velocity, Pivit and OPENetworks. Of those, only Opticomm and OPENetworks and now Comverge were open access.

Hansen said the move was driven by the growth prospects in greenfields deployments presented by the national broadband network and by the need to drive growth in the business generally.

"As a company we had to move from being a network provider and builder to be fully aware of the convergence of media and telecommunications," he said.

"Gone are the days where you can just be a network builder. It'd open you up to limited business growth if that's all you did."

Hansen said the company favoured network equipment made by Pacific Broadband Networks (PBN), although it also used "quite a bit of Cisco".

Comverge was, until two years ago, a consultancy and installation division of PBN called PBN Connect, before it was spun off as a separate entity.

Comverge estates included Hope Island Resort on the Gold Coast and Sandhurst Club in Melbourne. Both were master planned estates with golf courses. The carrier license would apply to future estates, not those already built.