In today’s Australian IT, among the regular doom and gloom that the current global financial situation is forcing journalists to write about, was news that Woolworths are planning on launching an MVNO off the back of Optus’ mobile network. Much like the current arrangement between Crazy Johns and Vodafone (or Virgin Mobile and Optus, even), the Woolies network would use Optus’ infrastructure, while they look after the customer relationships and billing side of things themselves.Michael Sainsbury and Mitchell Bingemann reckon that the MVNO will operate similarly to Tesco’s network in the UK, where the supermarket chain offers discount handsets and topping up your prepaid when you spend a heap of cash on your regular groceries.
The move is probably a very smart one – playing to the working family market who just need a cheap extra phone for emergency phone calls – but the question remains… Will Optus’ already overworked networks be able to handle the extra strain?