iiNet exports BoB to New Zealand

Australian internet service provider iiNet today announced a new deal which will see products coming out of its Labs division sold in New Zealand as early as next week.

Under the deal, iiNet will grant Orcon — a growing New Zealand telecommunications provider — access to its product range, with the New Zealand company to on-sell their first device, the BoB2, to customers from July 20. Orcon will sell the BoB 2 under the name “Orcon Genius”, with the device undergoing a number of modifications to become suitable for sale in the New Zealand market.

Pricing for New Zealand customers will be revealed next week, but Orcon CEO Scott Bartlett said in a statement that pricing will begin around NZ$70 per month. “We’ll be revealing prices next Wednesday, but let’s just say with packages starting at $70 per month, many Kiwis will be cutting around $40 from their monthly bill and that’s massive news in our book,” Bartlett said.

Steve Harley, iiNet Labs CEO, said in a statement this morning that the company is “happy” with the deal, and is “exploring” more overseas opportunities. “Orcon are the first export contract for us and we look forward to exploring more opportunities of this kind. The advantage we have as an ISP is that we know exactly what the product should do and how it should perform,” he said.

“We have been working with the team at Orcon to develop something that will work in both markets – from both a technology and product point of view. We’re both really happy with the outcome.”

According to Harley, iiNet will modify other Labs products in the coming months with the aim of making them available through Orcon over the course of the rest of the year.

iiNet Labs was formed last year after the company decided to bring the research and development of their hardware including the BoB, the ISP’s popular all-in-one wireless router and phone, in-house. Recent products to come out of iiNet Labs include the second-generation BoB device, which became available to customers earlier in the month, and a new Wireless Bridge product which sits between customers’ loungeroom media centres and their routers.

Image credit: iiNet