iiNet has announced the release of its bonded ADSL service offering, making it the first internet service provider in Australia to provide such optimized services. The deployment of the bonded DSL technology, which can likely double network speeds by integrating two copper wire pairs, is aimed at the SME market.

Bonded DSL can benefit iiNet's current 42,000 following of business clients and prospective customers for high transfer speeds without the added fibre costs.

Steve Harley, business general manager of iiNet, has told CommsDay that although the new service is only accessible through iiNet's DSLAM serviced areas, it already accounts for more than 85 per cent of the company's clients.

"The key that we saw with bonded DSL... is who the audience is. We have about 42,000 business customers nationally; small to medium businesses, not enterprise or corporate," Mr. Harley said.

"We sell fibre at the moment, through a couple of different third parties... but two major considerations for SMBs are whether it's available in their area, and obviously the entry cost. Even if you amortise it or finance it, you're definitely going to be spending about A$1,000 plus a month, and... it's not uncommon to see $20-30,000 plus for fibre setup costs."

The bonded DSL service will combine double ADSL2+ lines into one channel, eliminating the need of most clients to sport two separate DSL ports which have bandwidth priority issues.

"At the exchange level, we bond sequential pairs... so the customer only has one connection at their end," Mr. Harley explained.

"And that's really important... it literally [acts as] one big pipe going to that customer premise."

Mr. Harley expressed his confidence that this offering would be successful, for demand registers accomplished a few weeks showed high interest for the product.

"In terms of new business opportunities, we definitely see that as a play... and we certainly look at our existing customers and feel that this is an upgrade," he remarked.