Optus

Optus can trace its beginnings back to the formation of the Government-owned AUSSAT Pty Limited in 1981. In 1982, Aussat selected the Hughes 376 for their initial satellites, with the first, AUSSAT A1, launched in August 1985.[5] AUSSAT satellites were used for both military and civilian satellite communications, and delivering television services to remote outback communities.

With Aussat operating at a loss and with moves to deregulate telecommunications in Australia, the government decided to sell Aussat, coupled with a telecommunications licence. The licence was sold to Optus Communications – a consortium including:[6]

• logistics firm Mayne Nickless (24.99%);[7]
• UK telecommunications company Cable & Wireless (24.50%);
• US telecommunications company BellSouth (24.50%);
• AIDC Limited (10.00%);
• insurance and investment company AMP (10.00%); and
• insurance and investment company National Mutual (6.02%).

The new telecommunications company was designed to provide competition to then government owned telecommunications company Telecom Australia, now known as Telstra.

Original 1990s logo

Optus gained the second general carrier licence in January 1991.[8]

Former Optus building in Adelaide, South Australia

After privatisation, AUSSAT became Optus and its first offering to the general public was to offer long-distance calls at cheaper rates than that of its competitor Telstra. The long-distance calling rates on offer were initially available by consumers dialing 1 before the area code and phone number. Following this, a ballot process was conducted by then regulator AUSTEL, with customers choosing their default long-distance carrier.[9] Customers who made no choice or refused to respond to the mailout campaign automatically remained as a Telstra long-distance customer. Customers who remained with Telstra could dial the override code of 1456 before the area code and phone number to manually select Optus as the carrier for that single call. Since 1 July 1998, consumers have the choice of preselecting their preferred long-distance carrier or dialling the override code before dialling a telephone number.

The group began by building an interstate fibre optic cable and a series of exchanges between Optus' interstate network and Telstra's local network. It also laid fibre optics into major office buildings and industrial areas, and focused on high bandwidth local, (interstate) long distance, and interstate calls for business. In its early years, Optus was only able to offer local and long-distance calls to residential customers through Telstra's local phone network. Telstra would carry residential to residential calls to Optus' exchanges, and then the calls would be switched to Optus' long-distance fibre optic network.

Optus was the main sponsor of the 1997 ARL season.

KELLY BAYER ROSMARIN

Kelly Bayer Rosmarin commenced as CEO of Optus and Consumer Australia on 1 April 2020.

A respected senior executive, Kelly joined Optus as Deputy CEO on 1 March 2019 following a variety of executive roles including Group Executive, Institutional Banking and Markets at the Commonwealth Bank of Australia.

These practices meant that Optus was the largest customer of Telstra. To become competitive Optus would need to lay its own local phone network. To provide a killer application for this, the Australian Federal government sold subscription television licences. Optus, as well as the Seven Network, businessman Kerry Stokes and American cable company Cablevision, formed the Optus Vision consortium. News Corporation and Telstra created the rival Foxtel consortium.

Telstra's local phone network did not have the capability to deliver Foxtel pay television to consumers in the early 1990s, so Telstra identified a need to create a broadband network to support this new product.

As Telstra and Optus could not agree on terms for a joint broadband cable roll out, they laid two competing cable networks, in addition to Telstra's existing copper network, at a combined cost estimated of over A$6bn.

Whilst Telstra focused on creating a broadband network specifically for broadcast, Optus designed their cable network to provide telephony services in addition to broadcast television.

Optus is no longer a customer of Telstra's after deciding to move the funding used to lease Telstra's copper network into constructing their hybrid fiber-coaxial network, the first in Australia.

Cable and Wireless with 24.5% stakeholder bought out Bell South's equal 24.5% shareholding in July 1997.[10] The company returned to profitability in 1998 and changed its name to Cable and Wireless Optus Pty Limited.[11] Government relaxation of foreign ownership restrictions paved the way for the company to be floated - with Cable and Wireless increasing its holding to 52.5%)[12][13] - and listed on the Australian Stock Exchange on 17 November 1998.[14]

During 2001, Singtel launched a takeover bid for Cable and Wireless Optus[15] which was ultimately successful[16] and the company became known as Singtel Optus Pty Limited.

In May 2004, Optus announced a $226.8 million bid for UEComm.[17] The takeover was approved in July[18] and completed in August.[19]

In July 2005, Optus announced it would acquire Alphawest Ltd. for A$25.9 million.[20] The buyout was completed in November 2005 and Alphawest is now an operating division of Optus Business.

On 12 January 2006, Optus acquired the remaining 74.15% of Virgin Mobile Australia for U$22.6 m, giving it 100% ownership.

OptusNet logo

Optus Communications offered its first business-focused internet products in 1998 under the OptusNet product family, offering in-house developed dial-up and high-speed services. Optus purchased one of Australia's pioneer ISPs, Microplex, in 1998 to provide consumer dial-up internet services.[21][22] Separate to this, under the Optus Vision brand, a cable broadband arm began as a joint venture with U.S. cable and content provider Excite@Home and was known as Optus@Home from its introduction in 1999[23] until it was renamed in 2002.[24] ADSL services were offered from February 2004.[25] ADSL2+ services were provided from December 2005.[26]

Logo used until mid-2013

In June 2007, joint venture subsidiary OPEL Networks was awarded government funding towards the cost of building a regional broadband network. Optus was to be contracted to build the network on behalf of OPEL.[27][28]

In April 2008, after a change of the Federal Government from the Liberal Party of Australia coalition to the Australian Labor Party, the new government terminated the funding agreement and the project was halted, with its functions to be replaced by the National Broadband Network.

Optus is part of a consortium – now known as Terria – that in July 2006 announced their intention to make a combined bid to build the proposed National Broadband Network.[29]

• Residential and Commercial POTS for local and long-distance telephony
• Commercial VoIP and VoDSL
• Intelligent Network applications, such as free call, 1300 and Interactive voice response services[31]

• GSM/GPRS utilising 900 MHz/1800 MHz covering 98.5% of the population[32]
• 3G/HSPA provided by 2100 MHz for large regional centres and metropolitan and 900 MHz for regional as well as metropolitan coverage. The dual frequencies covers 98.5% (98.8% with the use of an external antenna) of the population[32]
• 4G/LTE provided by 700 / 1800 / 2100 / 2300 / 2600 MHz Covering 95.9% of the Australian population (As of July 2017).
• 5G profided by 2300MHz and 3500MHz
• Satellite Telephony covering all of Australia.

• NBN Internet (via Cable, FTTB, FTTC, FTTN, FTTP, Fixed wireless and Satellite)
• Residential Dial-Up Internet in all states
• Residential Broadband Internet (via cable and DSL) in all states (except the Northern Territory).
• Commercial and Wholesale internet access
• Secure Gateway services for Federal Government departments

• Optus Television service provided in Sydney, Melbourne & Brisbane, including Foxtel Digital

• ExtraTerrestrial Fibre Optic Network
  • Cairns to Brisbane
  • Brisbane to Sydney (fully diverse over two physically separate paths)
  • Sydney to Melbourne (fully diverse over two physically separate paths, one via Canberra, one via the coast)
  • Melbourne to Adelaide
  • Adelaide to Perth
• SDH Digital Microwave
  • Hobart to Launceston
• Satellite
  • Fleet of geostationary satellites (See Optus fleet of satellites)
  • International Earth Stations in Sydney and Perth
  • National Earth Stations in Brisbane, Canberra, Melbourne, Adelaide, Perth, Hobart and Darwin
• Regional exchanges in Sydney (Rosebery), Melbourne, Brisbane, Canberra, Adelaide and Perth.
• Telehousing Data Centres in Melbourne and Sydney

• Hybrid fibre-coaxial (HFC) network in Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne, providing consumer fixed telephony, cable internet and cable television services.
• CBD optical fibre rings in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide, Perth, Canberra and Wollongong, providing direct access for corporate and government services.
• DSLAMs in certain Telstra local telephone exchanges in all states. Originally only providing business-grade DSL services, newer installations also provide consumer DSL and POTS telephony.

OptusNet is one of only five ISPs in Australia to provide Cable internet (the other four are BigPond, Neighbourhood Cable, TransACT and e-wire). In August 2010, OptusNet released an upgrade of its HFC network to the DOCSIS 3.0 standard,[38] which enabled customers to access a maximum theoretical downstream bandwidth of 100 Megabits. OptusNet is also one of the few ISPs in Australia to currently provide ADSL2+ via its own DSLAMs, which it also resells to other ISPs.[39]

Mobile network equipment is from Nortel, Nokia and Huawei and antennas are sourced from Andrews, RFS, Argus and Kathrein.

The Optus network operates on the following bandwidth frequencies across Australia:

• 3G UMTS 900/2100 MHz
• 4G LTE 700 / 1800 / 2100 / 2300 / 2600 MHz network which has been in progressive rollout since 2012.[40][41] VoLTE is currently being rolled out across Australia. For now, VoLTE is only available in CBD and metro areas in Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, Brisbane, Perth and Canberra on selected devices purchased on postpaid contracts. Until VoLTE has been fully rolled out, voice calling is still reliant on the 3G network (and the 2G network until it is terminated).[42]
• 5G 3500 MHz rollout started in October 2019

The 2G GSM 900/1800 MHz network was terminated on 3 April 2017 in Western Australia and Northern Territory.[43] 2G GSM will be completely terminated on 1 August 2017 when 2G is disconnected in Victoria, New South Wales, Australian Capital Territory, Queensland, Tasmania and South Australia. A device that is capable of running 3G at 900 MHz will be required once 2G is completely disconnected to remain connected across Australia.

Part-owned network infrastructure includes:

• 3G mobile network, a joint venture with Vodafone Australia[44]
• Southern Cross Cable, a fully diverse submarine optical fibre link across the Pacific Ocean between Sydney, New South Wales and California in the United States. The Singtel group owns a 40% interest in Southern Cross Cables Limited. This interest was originally owned by Singtel Optus Pty Limited, before ownership was transferred to parent company Singtel during the March 2006 - June 2006 quarter.[45]