Tuesday, June 30. 2009Perhaps You Should Register Exetel As A Charity....John Linton ......as somewhat cynically commented by someone we are in the early stages of discussions with about the opportunities in some sort of JV in the UK. I had sent them the preliminary FY2009 results and the latest iteration of the FY2010 business plan together with various initiatives we are taking in descriptive form and they asked the question everyone who sees our figures always asks - "why don't you raise your prices and make a lot more money"? It's a good question, if you are only looking at every commercial entity from basic commercial viewpoints - which is of course what every accountant and 'business visionary' does. We could easily raise our prices by a few dollars (probably more than that) and make $4 or 5 million more for 'ourselves' each year - we simply choose not to do that as it is not why we are in business. No-one can seem to get over the objective of making $A1.00 per month profit per service and trying to make a contribution to your country's well being - they always ask but why did you set such a low figure which results in such paper thin margins and such a 'precarious' ongoing financial existence? To which there is no answer as it means that anyone who asks such a question hasn't bothered to read the half dozen or so paragraphs about why we created Exetel in the first place and if they can't be bothered to read that then, presumably, they didn't bother to read any of the following few pages that set out the details of how and why Exetel will try and do what it does. The main reason is that it's in every Australian's best interests to pay as little as possible for a utility like communications. There are other reasons to spend your 'working day' doing something other than making more and more money even if you do participate in a commercial enterprise. Most people, who are not in a 'financial strait jacket' seem to prefer enjoying what they do and getting personal and professional satisfaction from what they do ahead of doing something they don't like or don't get satisfaction from just because it provides them with more money - I suppose the ideal would be to do both if you rank money as something important in your life - I have never been the slightest bit interested in money so it has never been any sort of priority for me. My views have always been that communications pricing should be determined by the government of the day for anything provided by tax payer's dollars which included the current national PSTN infrastructure and, in the event it ever gets built, the proposed "NBN2". It's one thing that puzzles me about the Kruddster's NBN2 - why take a huge amount of tax payers dollars and build another infrastructure that you plan to then hand over to the same bunch of inefficiently managed and terminally rapacious companies that currently massively overcharge for current services on the previous infrastructure the Australian tax payers funded over the previous 100 years? Exetel's view is that communications is pretty similar to education and hospitals and roads and the police force - Australians need as good as it gets and should be charged as little as possible for such services - not have tax payer dollars 'gifted' to greedy and lazy bunches of people (called communication companies) so that they can simply take no risks but pick up their share of a multi-billion dollar hand out courtesy of Labor stupidity. Maybe I'm totally incorrect - it wouldn't be the first time - and maybe the actual end user rip off will not turn out to be the case. I am really curious to see what transpires between now and Christmas with the pricing for the "just about ready" to be announced Tasmanian 'NBN2' and am even more curious as to which "communications companies" are given access to this part of the 'NBN2' and at what preferential costs. I remember what happened when Telstra was privatised - almost instantly all the prices went up - and there I was, naive idiot that I am, under the impression that 'privatisation' was meant to drive prices down. [Quick communications industry test: what was the monthly price of a residential PSTN line on the date that the first shares in 'Telstra' were sold to the public and what was the cost of a local call?] If you actually know, or can quickly research, the answer then you will see what I mean about the ludicrous concept of a Federal Government turning over tax payer built and paid for infrastructure to the greedy and completely incompetent care of "private enterprise management"....who can't believe their good fortune of being handed a monopoly that they simply see as a license to print money for themselves (screw the shareholders - check Telstra's share price decline but then check the salary increases of the current management over the same period and tell me I'm wrong). I wonder whether Krudd and co will consider how access to the 'NBN2' should be priced to end users? I mean will they just hand over billions of tax payer money and say "let the market decide" on what the end user costs should be? I can't see that being a very good idea (based on what happened last time) but then it appears to me that the current muppets have actually learned nothing from the errors of the previous muppets - hardly surprising when you look at the deficiency of both knowledge of communications and the lack of intellect required to understand more complex scenarios than how to get re-elected and awarding yourself more and more money. I wonder whether it will eventually dawn on Labor (it never would be a possibility for the Coalition) that it's actually a very, very bad idea for governments to build things they turn over to 'private enterprise' - not just ideologically but practically and that there never has been an instance, in the history of world commerce over the past 4,000 years (let alone in 'modern commerce of the last 150 years) where such a process has ever worked. So why would anyone, any group of people, begin to consider such a ridiculous path to go down when all of history (not to mention the current US banking and automotive bail outs) demonstrate, in huge flashing neon lights, that such an action wil simply become yet one more unmitigated disaster along with all the rest over a 4,000 year time span. Perhaps if the new 'NBN2' company was registered as a charity and NOT run by 'private enterprise' then there might be some sort of chance of getting communications services in Australia at the lowest possible costs - I don't know - something like $A1.00 a month profit per service? Seems like the best thing to do in line with "......helping Australian working families". Anyone think the communications companies will have the best interests of anyone but their 'senior management' in mind? Trackbacks
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It seems crystal clear to me that if you let private companies manage and run a public 'utility' they are inherently going to want to make profits and unless they have some self control or rules that amount is likely to be considerably above the interest of the country and its people.
Why has the government not learned from there past mistakes (Telstra, etc) and stop privatising public companies just because its the 'easier' option for them at the time and makes them some nice money on the sale? Comment (1)
I think you answered your own question in your first sentence.
Comments (3)
>Why has the government not learned<
because that might suggest we have people in charge who actually have some concept of why they're there and what it is that needs to be done. let's face it, we don't have that. Comment (1)
hi john,
i got an email from tpg tonight offering this plan... how on earth do tpg make money on plans like this? - why do i ask - your the only straight shooter that owns an isp that i know.. ADSL2+ Plans Monthly Access Charge Monthly Download Quota (Peak + Off Peak) Buy Super Fast Starter /10GB $29.99 10GB1 (3GB+7GB) cheers bill Comments (2)
Bill,
Exetel offers plans at $5.00 cheaper with double those downloads. http://www.exetel.com.au/a_plan_pricing_adsl2_nf.php Comments (3)
I must be mesmerized by the bright purple and yellow colours of TPG.
There is a message in there somewhere, that bright bold colours and flashing ads sink into my memory better than a normal logically typed email, such as Exetel uses. Is more colour an aspect that Exetel could look at. cheers Bill Comments (2)
I have never thought of doing anything except what we do.
Becoming more like TPG, or any other ISP for that matter, is not attractive to me personally. Comments (3)
You do have a very good suggestion. The lotteries commission is a charity and that does donate money to people.
My great idea for our organ donation problem (not enough generous DEAD people) was to only allow people who are registered as organ donors (for a year or something) to be receiptents of organ donors. That would boost the registry 10 fold (in my imagination). But why bother talk to my local politician about it... All he seems to care about from reading his his newsletter are old people's pensions. Maybe I'm just having a 'brain explosion' as one Sydney footballer would say, but what do the federal government give me? They're not in charge of delivering any services to me. Not education, health, roads, power, libraries, gas, courts, prisons. Just universities. They must be doing something. They are in charge of regulating the financial system... ... Comment (1)
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