iiNet has announced it will purchase fellow WA-based ISP Westnet in a deal worth $81 million, but will retain the staff and brand of the company.

iiNet said it would cement the ISP as the third largest in Australia. "With Westnet's 215,000 active services, including 138,000 broadband users, iiNet's total number of active services will grow to over 680,000, including over 470,000 dialup and broadband subscribers", said the announcement.

iiNet managing director said that iiNet and Westnet are two of Australia's "best loved brands", and that iiNet will be able to learn from Westnet's award winning customer service history.

"Westnet has worked very hard over a long period of time to build its reputation of award winning customer service", said Westnet managing director Peter Brown. "This opportunity allows the company to continue that same level of customer service and also offer many new products to our agents and customers."

iiNet will be able to use Westnet's mainly resold services to boost the use of its own DSLAM infrastructure. It also gains Westnet's large agent/reseller network and will now be able to offer satellite services. Westnet will gain access to iiNet's ADSL2+, naked DSL and VoIP products.

The purchase is set to be finalised mid-June. Westnet has posted a FAQ for customers on the announcement.

maybe why me and punky have had net probs together.. In bf2 ping goes to 200 at the same time, connection probs at the same time... Cos punky is with westnet, im with iinet

lol im still worse off i win mofo..

blue is with shitnet

hmm hope westnet quality doesn't drop to iinet standards

yeh im with westnet till end of nov, best isp ive ever had and great pings. So hope they dont get worst.

iinet is pro, bigpond is the shitheap, overpriced faggot fucks

bigpond pays my bills bitch :P

I use Iinet, have for about 3 years now.
I get 15-30 ping GA, around 25-45 on node, depending on which side of the country.

ADSL2 ftw...