iiNet has launched a range of 4G wireless broadband services over the Optus LTE network. The company says it will use these services to “drive up its product-to-customer ratio”.

iiNet Chief Product Officer, Steve Harley, said iiNet was entering the 4G market early because of strong customer demand. “The move from 3G to 4G services is comparable to moving from first-generation broadband to ADSL2+,” he said.

“That makes 4G a disruptive force in the market, which is great for iiNet as a challenger brand. With today’s launch, we offer Australia’s most affordable standalone 4G broadband service for just $29.95 a month, plus iiNet-branded 4G devices to make it easy for our customers to use these new services.

"Our range of 4G plans has large data quotas, and complement our ADSL, fibre broadband, fixed line voice, mobile voice and data services, plus our fetchtv IPTV service. As well as winning new customers, 4G will drive iiNet’s growth by increasing the number of products we sell each customer.

“Next year, we’ll deliver 4G wireless broadband as Layer 2 network services giving us greater control. Layer 2 lets us design tailored plans, for example, offering unmetered access to IPTV content and 4G fleets with shared data quotas. This will make iiNet’s 4G services even more attractive.”

Today’s new 4G services will be available to customers of iiNet, Westnet and Netspace. Internode will launch its own 4G services in the near future. iiNet has 93,000 users on its existing 3G service.