Mega-telco Telstra has announced it will not participate in its own broadband customer transfer process, meaning BigPond customers will not be able to change to other ISPs as easily.
Mega-telco Telstra has decided it will not participate in its own broadband churn process, for customers transferring between ISPs.
The scheme, to be introduced in January, is designed to ease the process of changing ISPs even if the two ISPs use different DSLAMs.
Until now, a customer changing from iiNet ADSL2+ to Internode ADSL2+, for example, had to fully disconnect their DSL and then reapply to be reconnected.
However, BigPond is attempting to stymie competing ISPs from luring customers away: Telstra says it doesn't want to be part of in its own scheme.
Internode Managing Director Simon Hackett said it was an obvious bid by BigPond to lock out 50% of the retail market from easily changing ISPs.
"It is just madness," he said. "Telstra is excluding half the retail market (the half it owns directly) from the process -- how on earth can they defend that decision?"
BigPond spokesman Craig Middleton said, "Each ISP has the option of participating in the DSL/SSS transfer process. In many circumstances, customers can still be transferred from or to an ISP whether or not the ISP participates in the DSL/SSS transfer process. BigPond has simply exercised its right under a process in which participation is voluntary."
Despite the refusal of Telstra to use its own process, the change is good news in general, meaning that from early January, it'll be possible to switch between ADSL2+ ISPs (except BigPond) with bare minimum downtime and with less chance something will go wrong.