blog Oh dear. It looks as if Optus chief executive Paul O’Sullivan took VHA chief Nigel Dews’ 2009 claim that the merged Hutchison/Vodafone entity could become number two in mobiles a little seriously. From an excellent article in The Australian (which we recommend you click through and read):

… on the back of his office door in Sydney’s North Ryde is a small picture of VHA chief executive Nigel Dews, the man who publicly declared the merger would make VHA No 2 in two years. That was in 2009. “I put it on my door because I wanted everyone who comes to see me, that as they walk out that door, to remember that this guy has said publicly that they were going to be two in two,” he says. “Where is he now?”

Well, the events of the past six months have shown us that Dews might have underestimated the VHA challenge when he took it on. But we might just as easily as another question of Paul O’Sullivan, given that iiNet has publicly claimed the number two position in ADSL: “Where is Optus now in fixed broadband?”

Image credit: Delimiter

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1. Tezz
   Posted 17/04/2011 at 5:17 pm | Permalink | Reply

   With regards to iiNet being #2 you’ll find it’s residential DSL services only, when it comes to other DSL services (wholesale, business, etc), Optus would still swamp them.

   That said, you have to give iiNet a pat on the back, they’ve definitely taken the market by storm with their offerings, and I’m happy to say I’m a customer of theirs.

   • Renai LeMay
     Posted 17/04/2011 at 5:23 pm | Permalink | Reply

     Yeah, I’ve been an iiNet customer for a while too … but I am thinking of switching to Internode at some point. iiNet is getting a little $pricey.

2. Kurt Figgins
   Posted 18/04/2011 at 9:12 am | Permalink | Reply

   It’s an interesting point that you raise, but it seems to ignore a couple of big elephants in the room.

   iiNet bought their way into number 2 last year by acquiring other ISPs and they’re losing customers faster than they can gain them.

   Oh, and if you added in Optus’ superior cable network then they’d have significantly more customers than iiNet.

   The playing field will level somewhat in NBN land though so Telstra & Optus will need to compete against more innovative ISPs which is a definite strength of iiNet.

   • Tezz
     Posted 18/04/2011 at 11:39 am | Permalink | Reply

     iiNet bought their way into number 2 last year by acquiring other ISPs and they’re losing customers faster than they can gain them.

     Do you have some stats to back that one up?

     The playing field will level somewhat in NBN land though so Telstra & Optus will need to compete against more innovative ISPs which is a definite strength of iiNet.

     True, value add will be important, but moving towards an NBN world even that is going to be a touchy subject. (I’m in the process of writing a blog post on this right now)