Telecom frees up DSL plans for residential customers

Telecom today gives its wholesale customers a chance to resell 1Mbit/s and 2Mbit/s residential unbundled bitstream service (UBS) DSL (digital subscriber line) plans.

Internet service providers have been able to sell 256kbit/s UBS since November. They bill the customer, rather than it appearing on a Telecom bill.

Telecom wholesale communications and strategy manager Justin Caswell says it is a layer 2 tunnel protocol service which providers can configure and manage themselves. Backhaul capacity is separate. Upstream capacity is capped at 128kbit/s.

"It is relevant to any large well-connected ISP," Caswell said.

Early this month Telecom had 17,600 wholesale broadband customers through 11 ISPs. Unbundling was forced on Telecom by the Commerce Commission, which demanded the company offer an internet grade service at wholesale rates.

Telecom has a target of 250,000 residential broadband customers by the end of the year, a third of them through the wholesale channel.

To encourage ISPs to shift their dial-up customers to broadband, Telecom is offering them a connection bonus of $88 for each new UBS connection confirmed before the end of next month.

Depending on the number of connections an ISP signs up, the 1Mbit/s service costs them between $28.25 and $31.70 each, while 2Mbit/s connections cost $30.40 to $33.85 a month.