ISP Eftel (ASX:EFT) has signed on to offer retail and wholesale National Broadband Network services.
EFT shares surged 83.25% to $0.031 on Monday after the announcement was made.
Eftel said as part of its deal with NBN Co, it had secured an arrangement for telecom company Dodo Australia to purchase services through Eftel as part of the NBN trials.
Eftel CEO Scott Stavretis said the deal will allow it to provide services to customers directly under the Eftel corporate brand, as well as to wholesale clients.
He said securing Dodo as the ISP's first wholesale client under the trial was a solid jumping off point.
“With Dodo's significant customer base of approximately 300,000 services, combined with Eftel and [brand] ClubTelco having over 120,000 services, this gives us significant scale,” Stavretis said. Scale will be an important factor in an NBN world, he added.
Dodo CEO Larry Kestelman promised to release the company's go-to-market strategy for the NBN “soon,” and said the company would aim to provide services at the lowest prices possible.
Eftel's agreement with Dodo could have been predicted – Stavretis is a former Dodo CEO, and had been working at the company since its inception in 2001. He was hired by Eftel in April.
Stavretis also helped create Dodo spin-off business ClubTelco, which Eftel acquired earlier this year.
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