Telecom NZ expands in Australia


Teresa Gattung heads up Telecom NZ

By CNN's Grant Holloway

SYDNEY, Australia (CNN) -- Telecom New Zealand is expanding further into the Australian mobile phone market with the signing Wednesday of a capacity deal with number 3 player Vodafone Australia.

Telecom NZ, which owns Australian telco player AAPT, operates the Cellular One mobile brand in Australia.

Australia's mobile phone market is undergoing consolidation as previously rapid growth tapers off and smaller players either collapse or are absorbed by big players such as Telstra Corp, Optus (owned by Singapore Telecommunications) and Vodafone.

Telecom NZ said Wednesday the deal with Vodafone would enable Cellular One to compete more effectively and offer a wider range of services and plans to Australian customers.

The deal enabled the company to "develop products, rate plans, data and other services," Telecom NZ mobile general manager Mohan Jesudason said in a statement.

Telecom NZ will also connect equipment such as intelligent network devices to the Vodafone network, he said.

Vodafone has about 2.09 mobile phone customers in Australia, compared with 3.7 million for Optus and more than 4 million for Telstra.

Another large player, Hutchison Australia, last week decided to rationalize its Orange brand retail mobile business to concentrate on providing third generation mobile services in the future.

Telecom NZ, headed by Teresa Gattung, is New Zealand's largest telco and dominates the mobile market in that country.