SingTel Optus Pty Limited is the second largest telecommunications company in Australia, and is a wholly owned subsidiary of Singapore Telecommunications (ASX: SGT). The company primarily trades under the Optus brand, while maintaining several wholly owned subsidiary brands, such as Virgin Mobile Australia and Boost Mobile in the mobile telephony market, Uecomm in the network services market and Alphawest in the ICT services sector.
To provide services, Optus owns and operates its own network infrastructure, as well as using the services of other network service providers, most notably Telstra Wholesale. It provides services both directly to end users and also acts as a wholesaler to other service providers. Through its OptusNet brand, it provides broadband, wireless and dial-up internet services.
The company was originally known as Aussat Pty Limited prior to privatisation, when it became Optus Communications Pty Limited . It was later renamed to Cable & Wireless Optus Pty Limited before changing again to its present name.
Overview
Key Optus products and services include:
- Fixed Telephony
- Residential and Commercial POTS for local and long distance telephony
- Commercial VoIP and VoDSL
- Intelligent Network applications, such as free call, 1300 and Interactive voice response services
- Mobile Telephony
- GSM/GPRS network in all states
- 3G/HSPA network currently in Adelaide, Brisbane, Canberra, Darwin, Hobart, Melbourne, Perth and Sydney.
- Satellite Telephony covering all of Australia.
- Internet Access
- Residential Dial-Up Internet in All States
- Residential Broadband Internet (via cable and DSL) in all states (except Tasmania and the Northern Territory).
- Satellite Internet
- Commercial and Wholesale internet access
- Secure Gateway services for Federal Government departments
- Cable Television
- Optus Television service provided in Sydney, Melbourne & Brisbane, including Foxtel Digital
- Leased Lines
- Data Transmission
Retail services are sold to customers via phone, internet or through retail outlets, especially franchise chains such as Optus World, Network Communications, Strathfield, Telechoice, and Allphones.
Subsidiaries
A number of notable wholly owned subsidiaries operate in Australia as part of the SingTel Optus group. These are:
- Information Technology & Network Services
- Alphawest
- Uecomm
- Mobile Telephony
- SIMplus
- Virgin Mobile Australia
Optus also sells mobile services under the brand name Boost Mobile.
Optus also has a 50% stake in the now defunct OPEL Networks.
Other wholly-owned subsidiaries of note no longer have a significant active role as individual entities. These are as follows:
Reef Networks was formed in 1999 to provide an optical fibre link between Brisbane and Cairns. Optus gained exclusive access to this link in 2001, ahead of acquiring the organisation in 2005.
XYZed was established by Optus in 2000 to provide wholesale business-grade DSL services under an individual brand, but today provides a collection of products only as part of the Optus Wholesale & Satellite division. XYZed established a network of DSLAMs inside Telstra telephone exchanges, utilising Unconditioned Local Loop services to reach end users.
History
AUSSAT and Deregulation
Optus can trace its beginnings back to the formation of the Government-owned AUSSAT Pty Limited in 1981. In 1982, Aussat selected the Hughes 376 for their initial satellites, with the first, AUSSAT A1, launched in August 1985.. AUSSAT satellites were used for both military and civilian satellite communications, and delivering television services to remote outback communities.
See also: Optus fleet of satellitesWith Aussat operating at a loss and with moves to deregulate telecommunications in Australia, the government decided to sell Aussat, coupled with a telecommunications licence. The licence was sold to Optus Communications - a consortium including:
- logistics firm Mayne Nickless (24.99%);
- UK telecommunications company Cable & Wireless (24.50%);
- US telecommunications company BellSouth (24.50%);
- AIDC Limited (10.00%);
- insurance and investment company AMP (10.00%); and
- insurance and investment company National Mutual (6.02%).
The new telecommunications company was designed to provide competition to then government owned telecommunications company Telecom Australia ; now known as Telstra.
Early History
After privatisation, AUSSAT became Optus and its first offering to the general public was to offer long distance calls at cheaper rates than that of its competitor Telstra. The long distance calling rates on offer were initially available by consumers dialing 1 before the area code and phone number. Following this, a ballot process was conducted by then regulator AUSTEL, with customers choosing their default long distance carrier. Customers who made no choice or refused to respond to the mailout campaign automatically remained as a Telstra long distance customer. Customers who remained with Telstra could dial the override code of 1456 before the area code and phone number to manually select Optus as the carrier for that single call. Since 1 July 1997 , consumers have the choice of preselecting their preferred long distance carrier or dialling the override code before dialing a telephone number.
The group began by building an interstate fibre optic cable and a series of exchanges between Optus' interstate network and Telecom's local network. It also laid fibre optics into major office buildings and industrial areas, and focused on high bandwidth local, (interstate) long distance, and interstate calls for business. In its early years, Optus was only able to offer local and long distance calls to residential customers connected to Telstra's local phone network. Telstra would carry residential to residential calls to Optus' exchanges, and then the calls would be switched to Optus' long distance fibre optic network.
The Hybrid Fibre-Coax Rollout
These practices meant that Optus was (and still is) the single largest customer of their competitor, Telstra. To become competitive Optus would need to lay its own local phone network. To provide a killer application for this, the Australian Federal government sold subscription television licences. Optus, as well as the Seven Network, businessman Kerry Stokes and American cable company Cablevision, formed the Optus Vision consortium. News Corporation and Telstra created the rival Foxtel consortium.
Telstra's local phone network did not have the capability to deliver Foxtel pay television to consumers in the early 1990s, so Telstra identified a need to create a broadband network to support this new product.
As Telstra and Optus could not agree on terms for a joint broadband cable roll out, they laid two competing cable networks, in addition to Telstra's existing copper network, at a combined cost estimated at over A$6bn.
Whilst Telstra focused on creating a broadband network specifically for broadcast, Optus designed their cable network to provide telephony services in addition to broadcast television.
The network was initially used to broadcast Cable TV only. In 1996 the Optus "New Deal" promotion of 20 cent local calls was launched by the Australian Prime Minister John Howard making the first local call to an Optus customer supposedly using the new Optus network. This call however was made by the existing Telstra POTS network as the new Optus network was not ready for telephony by the advertised launch date. The real activation of Optus telephony services followed later on in 1996.
Takeovers
24.5% stakeholder Cable and Wireless bought out Bell South' s equal 24.5% shareholding in July 1997. The company returned to profitability in 1998 and changed its name to Cable and Wireless Optus Pty Limited . Government relaxation of foreign ownership restrictions paved the way for the company to be floated - with Cable and Wireless increasing its holding to 52.5%) - and listed on the Australian Stock Exchange on 1998-11-17 .
During 2001, SingTel launched a takeover bid for Cable and Wireless Optus which was ultimately successful and the company became known as SingTel Op
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