Customers sign up for wireless broadband

Woosh Wireless has increased the number of customers using its broadband internet service by half over the past five months. It now has a 30 per cent market share in areas covered by its network.

The company, which does not publicly report results, said yesterday that it had added 5000 customers since February for a total of 15,000.

Chief executive Bob Smith said Woosh's wireless service was proving a viable alternative to Telecom's copper-line DSL broadband product.

Smith attributed the customer growth to the lower cost of its basic broadband service, compared with the similar product from Telecom.

Woosh's basic broadband service is $29.95 a month and offers a download speed of around 250 kilobits a second, about the same as Telecom's, which costs $39.95.

Smith said the company did not charge different, higher rates for businesses as Telecom did.

Chief operating officer Richard Cane also promised that Woosh's long-rumoured foray into phone services was imminent.

"We're in the final throes of tweaking this service," he said. "We're not talking next year, we're talking very soon."

Smith would not comment on plans to go public, saying only that Woosh was continually looking for ways to raise capital and an offering was one alternative.

Wooshing away

The network covers most of Auckland, Wellington Christchurch and Invercargill.

Another 5000 customers have been added since February.

About 90 per cent of those are residential.