OPTUS COMPLETES REMOTE AREA BROADCASTING PORTFOLIO

Optus announced today it had signed an exclusive five- year satellite contract with Western Australia's two commercial television Remote Area Broadcasting (RAB) licence operators, GWN (Golden West Networks, part of the PRIME Television Group) and WIN Television.

The deal strengthens Optus' position as Australia's leading satellite provider with all 13 RAB licensees throughout Australia now receiving broadcast services via Optus satellites.

Warren Hardy, Managing Director of Optus Wholesale and Satellite, said Optus would provide both standard television services and a digital television distribution service (DTDS) under the deal.

"Optus has a solid and extensive background of supplying DTDS services, after providing the ABC and SBS with DTDS for three years and one year respectively.

"The Western Australia deal is an exciting milestone for Optus as we now provide all RAB licence operators in Australia with satellite services," Mr Hardy said.

In addition to standard television distributed via Optus' Aurora platform, WIN and GWN will install digital television transmitters in Western Australia to transmit new digital television signals.

Television signals will be distributed via Optus satellites in two ways: signals are sent to sites and re-transmitted for reception via a standard television aerial or sent directly to homes where the signal is received via a satellite dish and receiver.

"Optus satellites are often the only viable means of communication in rural and regional Australia," Mr Hardy said.

"Services often difficult to deliver to the remote parts of Australia, such as voice, data and broadcast, are readily available via Optus satellites."

WIN and GWN will share 23Mbps of capacity on Optus' B3 satellite, and 8.8Mbps of capacity on the Optus C1 Aurora platform.

For further information on Optus visit: www.optus.com.au

For more information:
Luisa Ford
Optus Corporate Affairs
Tel: (02) 9342 5045