Unwired whips up subscriber storm

Wireless broadband provider Unwired has signed up 5800 new subscribers from March to April inclusive.
 
Amanda Wallace, a spokeswoman at Unwired, said the company – which has been promoting itself heavily via advertising campaigns on TV and elsewhere – had signed up 5800 net new subscribers in the last two months.

"This compares to Telstra's recent success claim of 7,000 wireless broadband customers nationally in four or five months," Wallace said in an email.

"Unwired has brought on board almost 6,000 customers in less than half that time in Sydney alone – which represents just 25 per cent of the national market."
 
David Spence, chief executive at Unwired, said March and April had performed the best, in customer acquisition terms, since the service was launched last year.
 
"Our new products are clearly winning a large part of the broadband market," he claimed. "This expansion rate was only exceeded by our opening month in September last year."

 Unwired also had a "healthy cash balance" and "tightly controlled costs", Spence said.

"Our underlying cost structure is lower than any other metro-wide telecommunications network provider in Australia," he said.

At 31 March, the company had $26.4 million in cash, while its cash burn rate in the preceding quarter had fallen to $4.5 million. The Sydney business was "fully funded" and the break-even point should soon be reached, Spence added.

Unwired has claimed to be the only carrier that could "easily" adopt WiMAX when that mobility standard is introduced.  "Unwired owns most of the 3.5GHz spectrum in Australia - which is the preferred WiMAX band," the company said in a statement.