John Linton I read this article with interest earlier this morning:
http://business.theage.com.au/broadband-price-war-looms/20071129-1dsa.html
As you may have noticed from previous comments I've made here Exetel has been attempting to find a wireless broadband service that we can sensibly add value to for some considerable time. We have had several discussions with Vodafone over the past 12 months whose network we use to provide mobile services to Exetel customers. We've also had very frustrating and eventually pointless discussions with two other mobile carriers and are currently in longer term discussion with mobile service aggregators in the USA and Hong Kong.
None of the discussions we've held to date have produced any tangible results and while it seems possible that we may be able to do something with at least one of the 'foreign' aggregators it will take quite a bit of time. So I was interested to see the first realistic 3G service hit the market as from next Monday and will be even more interested to see the response of Telstra and Optus to that 'break through' price/download combo from Vodafone.
Personally, I think that $A39.00 a month for a 3G broadband service with 5 gb of downloads and a no charge modem is easily the most attractive broadband offering made available this year - certainly gets my nomination for best broadband offering of 2007.
I'd like to know what allowed a 3G provider to so suddenly change its pricing for data over 3G from ridiculously unaffordable to more affordable than the best wire line services available so suddenly. Was it a new technology breakthrough or was it just a 'stroke of the pen' decision by Vodafone sales and marketing? I'll never know of course.
So Vodafone has established that $A8.00 per gb downloaded (in the eyes of the customer) with no set up fee and no modem cost is the way to go in Australia in 2008. I think that would set the benchmark for 70% of all broadband decisions made in areas where there is VodaFone coverage. If I was concerned before about how tough a year 2008 was going to be this Vodafone announcement consigns all my previous concerns to 'background noise'. Not just the Vodafone announcement in isolation but the inevitable responses by the other 3G carriers and (assuming they actually do have the network bandwidth to connect huge numbers of customers) the 'sea change' that would bring in terms of the preferred technology to deliver data services.
It doesn't take much imagination to see that Vodafone et alia will be serious contenders for any new Federal funding for broadband to the bush and increased coverage of broadband at faster speeds generally. So there isn't just the spectre of a Labour/Telstra FTTH impact but now a very real technology shift that is logically what is really needed in the next decade.
I guess it's time to give our Vodafone contacts another call and see what is possible for wholesale customers in 2008.