Snap's former owner Mark Petrie is now 2degrees' new most valuable player after the telco bought his internet company.
"Snap have come to the realisation that they need a mobile product… it's a match made in heaven actually," says 2degrees chief executive Stewart Sherriff.
The price is confidential, but industry sources say the deal could be worth as much as $26 million - a mix of cash and shares in 2degrees.
Mr Petrie started in the business back in 1999, doing work experience.
"I guess there is a lot of chance involved in here, a lot of hard work by everyone," says Mr Petrie. "We have also got staff who have been here close to 15 years as well, if not longer, that have come from other companies and merged."
2degrees customers will now be able to get a home phone line, but this deal is really about broadband and data.
"More and more you are seeing the internet of things, which is the smart houses - that puts a lot of demand on the bandwidth capabilities as well, so it's all going to be about data moving forward," says Mr Sherriff.
Mr Petrie is not about to retire - 2degrees has a lot of work to do to win customers from its bigger rivals.
"The team and I have built the Snap network for scale and this is the launch pad to give it that scale," says Mr Sherriff.
The company's new plans and prices will be revealed in about three months, and it's looking at entering the streaming video-on-demand market too.
3 News
source: newshub archive
