Netspace leaps into retail

Melbourne ISP Netspace has jumped into the retail market with broadband in a box, claiming that current offerings don’t make the grade for resellers.

John Millar, sales manager at Netspace, said other broadband-in-a-box offerings available in Australia needed customers and resellers to know too much about broadband and how to set broadband connections up.

Volume resellers wanted to sell broadband in a box but did not want to spend precious resources on post-sales service, he added.

“Broadband-in-a-box must be able to handle the unit reseller -– with little or no connection to the customer -– through to the reseller who wants to sell hardware, a connection and everything,” Millar said.

Laypeople must be able to set the thing up at home without assistance. Also, customers needed to be confident they could actually get the broadband connection for which they had paid, he pointed out.

Millar said Netspace was including a one-stop way for resellers and retailers to check customers’ DSL availability before buying the product.

Also, customers would get installation instructions on CD-ROM and a “little red netbook” that answered typical post-installation and more general customer queries.

Further, some other vendor offerings had USB modems. Millar said USB modems were generally a bad choice for all but the most budget-conscious buyer.

“Anybody with an old version of [Windows] 95 or 98 or running an older box, they’re going to have dramas with USB modems,” he said.

Millar said Netspace was including a four-port Ethernet modem router from NetComm. “There’s single port modems out there. We’ve a four port modem router we’ve sold through general order to thousands of customers,” he said.

Resellers would get, for selling a home connection, $35 up front and three percent trailing commission. Also, Netspace was not charging any call back penalties to resellers for customers that exited their contracts early, Millar said.

Netspace’s broadband in a box would be available in home, SOHO, business and corporate connection varieties.