HyperOne 'knew' Telstra would try to overbuild its national fibre network

HyperOne founder Bevan Slattery is counting on the industry backing the national fibre network his company is building after incumbent Telstra unveiled a competing effort.

Bevan Slattery.

Telstra said it would spend between $1.4 billion and $1.6 billion to deploy about 20,000km of new fibre into the ground to boost intercapital and regional capacity.

The model, as pointed out by iTnews, looks more or less the same as HyperOne, which announced last year it would deploy a 20,000km fibre backbone for $1.5 billion.

In a LinkedIn post, Slattery branded the Telstra proposal ‘HyperTwo’ and indicated that HyperOne had anticipated Telstra trying to compete with it.

“We knew Telstra would look to overbuild us,” Slattery wrote.

He said that HyperOne would continue to build its network - it started that effort in December.

Slattery also believed that HyperOne would be able to differentiate on competitive grounds as well as regional reach. 

The HyperOne project has a strong regional focus, with aims to bring high-speed connectivity to traditionally underserved and remote parts of the country.

“There is something bigger here. Something Telstra won't do. That's enable competition,” Slattery wrote.

“HyperOne is about enabling competitive backhaul to remote communities that for decades have experienced some of the most expensive backhaul in the developed world”.

Slattery added that HyperOne also wanted to “enable mobile operators to extend coverage to more and more Australians” and “give network operators and hyperScalers an opportunity to move on from legacy networks that do not scale physically or economically in line with their needs.”

He said that the construction of two national backhaul networks would essentially pit “innovation against incumbency.”

“I believe the industry will support us in our vision - because it comes from a place of enabling others and this nation’s digital future,” Slattery wrote.