John Linton
........well, just a bit of lateral thinking able to be done because we have got the HSPA services up and running.
Based on the work we have done to provide a zero down time for our own ADSL2 customers on the Powertel/AAPT based ADSL2 service to painlessly transfer to the Optus ADSL2 services we have have designed a new 'churn' process for customers of other ADSL2 services (either SSS or ULL) that eliminates the down time involved in such changes.
The process is to loan them an HSPA service if they are in an Optus mobile 3G coverage area - which is now most of Australia.
The essence of the 'churn' is:
1) Customer applies
2) We check to ensure Optus ADSL2 is available
3) If yes we help the customer cancel the other ISP's service
4) We simultaneously send an HSPA modem which they plug in as soon as their other ADSL2 service drops
5) We then start the provisioning process for the new Optus ADSL2 service
6) When the new service is live the customer returns the HSPA modem
A true 'no down time' ADSL2 churn process!!
Up until now the need for, say, an iiNet user (but to us much more importantly a Telstra BigPond user) to lose their ADSL service for 3 - 4 weeks if they wished to change supplier was and remains for every other ISP a major problem. We have turned away hundreds of other ISPs ADSL2 users (mainly iiNet) over the past six months by pointing out to them the problems and delays involved in moving an ADSL2 service either on SSS or ULL.
Not exactly wildly imaginative thinking (when you think it through it's pretty prosaic) but the end result addresses a problem that ADSL2 infrastructure 'owners' have counted on as a major factor in retaining any customer who selects their ADSL2 service - that they have to suffer a considerable amount of inconvenience if they want to move away to another provider (like the days before Telstra introduced the "ADSL1 churn'" process - something that has been very useful for ADSL1 users.
Obviously, as more ISPs provide HSPA services they will be able to make the same offer of 'no down time' transfers to their ADSL2 services available. It gets around Telstra's obduracy in refusing to join in any process which would allow their ADSL2 users to move away from their BigPond offerings and allows those 'locked in' users to move to a more affordable and flexible ADSL service after all the freebies offered by Telstra,and Optus for that matter, (free months, half price months, free modems etc) to lure those users quickly run out.
The only difficult aspect of the process is writing the back end code to make the sign up, transition and turn on process simple for the customer and automatic for Exetel so that the cost of doing this is not burdensome on either party. For us - this isn't a major problem as we have a lot of experience in this sort of implementation - for the dinosaurs it may pose more difficulties.
Temporary services to bridge the gap in switching providers are an important aspect of business generally but they have always been problematic in communications services based on Telstra infrastructures. The now common and ubiquitous data over mobile services available from at least four sources solves a number of the past problems for all but the very 'heavy' down loaders.
I think it will add 5% and 10% to our ADSL2 sales each month for the balance of this financial year and much more than that, between 15% and 20% in the following 12 months when the HSPA service becomes universally accepted and speeds (and costs) have declined from their current levels. In its simple and minor way this 'invention' may prove to be extremely valuable.