Westnet lifts market share

Strong growth in the first quarter of the calendar year, a nationwide advertising campaign and the imminent launch of ADSL2+ has ensured 2006 has been a hectic period for internet service provider, Westnet.

Managing director Peter Brown, a former WA Business News 40under40 winner, said the business had grown significantly and currently had more than 115,000 residential broadband customers across Australia.

“In the first six months of this year, we went through a massive growth. We took our staff levels from 200 to 400 in the space of three to four months on the back of a nationwide ad campaign,” Mr Brown said.

Doubling the size of the team had proved relatively straightforward, he said, due to an efficient HR department and a bit of improvisation.

Westnet was also part of a national advertising campaign earlier in the year to promote ADSL in rural and remote areas, as part of a federal government subsidised initiative called Broadband Connect.

“We were one of the few registered participants in Australia to be a part of that program. It was a very exciting time,” Mr Brown said.

The company experienced a significant increase in customers following the campaign, with nearly 9,000 sign-ups a month.

Westnet’s share of the telephony market has also continued to grow since the introduction of its home phone rebilling service in 2004.

“It’s becoming a significant extra,” Mr Brown said.

“We’ve probably got about 12,000 customers on it at the moment and the growth in that is picking up each month.

“The challenge is convincing customers that someone can offer the service besides Telstra.”

Mr Brown said the development of an internal billing system had been a significant undertaking, although the telephony aspect had become a much bigger part of the business as an increasing number of people sought to bundle their phone and broadband services.

Last week, Westnet announced it would be introducing ADSL2+ broadband services, having secured wholesale agreements with Optus and PowerTel.

The ADSL2+ service will provide theoretical speeds of up to 24Mb/s, which is 16 times faster than the current premium service offered by Westnet.

Westnet also announced that it will be providing higher speed services to existing ADSL customers in the near future, expected to be up to 8Mb.

• Nominations are now open for the 2007 40under40 Awards. The awards are open to WA business owners and executives, working for a WA-based company, who are under the age of 40 as at December 31 2006.  To nominate, visit www.40under40.com.au/.

Applications close on Monday December 11 at 5pm.