TelstraClear: it was the XT snub that made us move

TelstraClear’s 3G launch today is its second time around with Vodafone.

A previous deal came unstuck in June 2007 amid a spat over TelstraClear’s short-lived effort to build its own mobile network, which foundered after the Aussie-owned telco had spend around $50 million, centred on Tauranga

TelstraClear duly decamped to Telecom’s CDMA network, leaving somewhere between 20,000 and 30,000 customers behind.

But Telecom humiliated TelstraClear by blocking if from its snazzier XT network for at least 18 months. In July last year, TelstraClear announced it was leaving to hop back in bed with Vodafone – where a welcoming, unrestricted 3G network awaited – the change that’s started to take place this week.

“We were very much given a horizon that was far too long to wait. It would have been very difficult to sell [a non-3G] product into the business market, which is key for us,” TelstraClear’s head of customer experience, John Bone, told NBR.

Ironically, Telecom has now relented and is offering potential MVNO partners earlier access to XT.

But so far, the telco has signed just one MVNO: business specialist Digital Island, while Vodafone numbers CallPlus/Slingshot, Black+White and Compass among its partners.