iiNet eyes long-term Basslink transit deal

ISP iiNet is pursuing a long-term capacity contract with Basslink Telecoms to satisfy its National Broadband Network interests in Tasmania.

The Perth service provider inherited capacity on the subsea cable link via its $40 million buyout of Netspace in late March.

The ISP has held multiple discussions with Basslink over a potential capacity agreement over the past 12 months.

Greg Bader, iiNet chief technology officer told iTnews that iiNet had been "playing" with Netspace's Basslink capacity to "make sure it fitted what we needed."

"With the NBN coming we want to put in long-term solutions that have the capacity to grow at a price level we can sustain," Bader said.

"We're working with all suppliers to put in place long-term solutions and finalise [those] arrangements."

The suppliers involved were understood to include Basslink, Telstra (who runs subsea links used by many ISPs for redundancy) and Aurora (terrestrial fibre links).

Bader said there was some price competition on the Tasmania-to-mainland Australia subsea route since the introduction of Basslink.

"But the reality is that to serve Tasmania is always going to be more expensive than the mainland [because of the subsea route]," he said.

"We want to get the price down to a point where we can sustain consistent pricing across all of the country [Australia]."

The ISP was one of the first three to offer retail services to stage one communities via a wholesale network agreement with Tasmania NBN Co.