Dodo is an Australian telecommunications company and Internet service provider (ISP) offering both dial-up and broadband Internet to customers Australia wide. Dodo claims to have over 300,000 subscribers, making it a fairly-large sized player in the ISP market in Australia. Dodo is considered a low budget ISP, catering to the lower end of the market.

Dodo resells ISP services from both AAPT and COMindico, much larger Australian wholesale ISPs with reseller arrangements in place. At one stage, Dodo was owned by the company KBS Group Pty Ltd, but this is no longer the case. Dodo does not operate any customer-facing network infrastructure itself (such as DSLAM or Modem banks,) but rather relies on the economies of scale present in reselling others' ports in order to make a moderate amount of cash from being a virtual ISP, and to provide similar services from a range of providers, giving customers more choice.

Dodo also sells pre-paid and post-paid mobile phone packages, calling cards for dialing overseas and home phone services. These services are also typically lower priced and aimed at the budget user. In 2004 and 2005 the use of the Dodo brand was extended with the launch of five retails stores in metropolitan Melbourne. In addition, Dodo products are now available in Allphones stores across Australia.

Recently, Dodo Australia has followed economic trends by outsourcing some call centers to the Asian market.

Marketing

Dodo advertises quite heavily on television. Most ads feature young, blonde women co-starring with an animated bird that looks very little like a real Dodo would have. However it has also run a campaign featuring former Australian basketballers Andrew Gaze and Mark Bradtke.

Recently, Dodo have been seen in ads with V8 Supercar team Holden Racing Team and the team's drivers Mark Skaife and Todd Kelly and the Dodo mascot driving the Holden Racing Team's road going showcase car against a turtle (which does a parody of Finding Nemo via the turtle saying: "Dude, what's the rush?" while Dodo in the show car race speeds away). They also heavily sponsor Ford team Paul Crucikshank Racing. Dodo has previously sponsored Team Dynamik in 2004 but left after the team was found guilty of doing illegal testing and Tasman Motorsport in 2005.

Dodo's recent 2007 advertising campaign received publicity for featuring Hollywood actress Tara Reid.

Controversy

In 2002, Dodo was investigated by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission for misleading clients. They had incorrectly advertised their dialup as being a local call, Australia-wide. It turned out that this claim was impossible, due to the service being unavailable in certain areas of the nation.<ref>http://www.accc.gov.au/content/index.phtml/itemId/88178/fromItemId/622035</ref> Dodo has since added a disclaimer that their dialup numbers are local calls in 98% of the country, and that it is the customer's responsibility to check with their telecommunications company if the service is available to them.

References

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See also

Broadband Internet Access

External links

Dodo Website