Telstra invests $600m in VoIP upgrades

Telstra has announced a $600 million Quality-of-Service upgrade to 1600 exchanges across Australia as part of a five-year plan to help small businesses switch to Voice over IP phone services.

The upgrades to Quality-of-Service will allow businesses using the Digital Business package to have quality VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) calls over their Telstra ADSL2+ connection, Telstra said. The upgrades will start at exchanges in capital cities and are anticipated to be completed in September. The 1600 exchanges are expected to serve 90 per cent of Australian businesses.

The upgrades come as the telco's CEO David Thodey today announced its Digital Business package for small businesses at the same time with the Federal Minister for Small Business, Nick Sherry.

Customers as well have the option to pay an additional $15 per month to have their internet and voice connection automatically switch over to the Telstra NextG network should the ADSL connection fail.

"Often people say they want a cheaper price nevertheless what they're in effect saying is that they want more functionality at a more affordable price," Thodey said at the launch in Sydney today, adding that the Digital Business package would save small businesses an estimated $2400 per year in costs.

Telstra would not but launch VoIP services to consumers, Thodey said, because he said that without the QoS upgrade, the research didn't have the level of "quality or reliability" that the company was happy with.

When asked whether the exchange upgrades are relevant given the roll-out of the Federal Government's National Broadband Network project, Thodey said that the company is after all committed to delivering services over the copper during the NBN is being rolled out.

"We're however rolling out ADSL2+ and we will progressively do that, and depending on how the NBN schedule finalises out, we will just manage the two," he said. "The wonderful thing about Digital Business is that it is NBN-ready, so we can just flick it across when NBN turns up and, hey presto, it's nevertheless working."

Thodey said that the telco has made "great progress" in the negotiations over the $11 billion deal with NBN Co to lease the ducts and pipes and shut down its copper network and move clients onto the NBN. NBN Co CEO Mike Quigley said on Friday that the negotiations have entered the "final stages" however neither chief would commit to revealing when the deal would be finalised.