Wednesday, October 28. 2009"Words" Convey More Than Their Meanings........John Linton ....and the 'variable' education standards over the past 50 or so years and the semi illiteracy it has produced among a much wider group of people than you would think possible makes a choice of words very difficult at times.....even more of a 'problem' when, as I am doing now and every morning for the past two plus years, writing without paying any attention to moderating my word selection and clumsy syntax....clearly illustrated by the length and construction of this heading....so this musing is for those, kind, people who want me to describe Exetel in more 'grandiose' terms. I am constantly reminded of this issue by people who write to me having read one or other of these ramblings taking me to task for constantly referring to Exetel as a "tiny" or "very small" company. I do that because it is the correct description of Exetel in the context of the Australian communications industry where the largest company turns over more than $A25 billion in the last financial year compared to Exetel's less than $A50 million. In terms of magnitude how do you 'rate' the size of a company that is one five hundredth of the size of another?.....the word "tiny" comes to mind. Alternatively you could 'rate' the two companies on employees where Telstra has over 50,000 employees and Exetel has around 70 - making Exetel one seven hundredth the size of Telstra....in terms of rating the word "tiny" again comes to mind. They are facts - and facts should not be played around with as liars and dishonest people try and do to try and make something appear to be to different to what it actually is - a terrible condition of so many Australians (and I'm sure people in other countries) who seem unable to accept circumstances as they are and, for their own self aggrandisement, try and portray themselves and their organisations as being more important than they are or, in many cases in this twisted period of Australia's history, as being completely different to what they actually are. For that reason, from the first month of Exetel's existence and then every month since then, we have published a 'history' of Exetel which has 'tracked' the company's progress. As far as I know no other company has had the 'courage' to publish such a record. It can be found here: http://www.exetel.com.au/news_main.php I could, if I tried and had no respect for the intellectual or ethical capacities of anyone who read my words, describe Exetel differently to "tiny" but that would be stupid and make me look as stupid and dishonest as people who do that - something I have no need to do at this 'contented' stage of my life. If you don't believe how absurdly easy that is I could describe Exetel as being: 1) The fastest growing data communications company in Australia - an average of well over 30% per annum over the past three years 2) The Australian data communications company with the least debt - zero 3) The most efficient Australian data communications in any business ratio comparison - Revenue/employee, Customers/employee, etc ......but what would be the point?....I'm an adult and business relationships are, mostly, between adults. On a less grandiose note I could use simple facts to 'inflate' the importance of Exetel in such ways as: A) October 2009 will be the 69th consecutive record revenue month for Exetel stretching back to the establishment of the company and that growth has been entirely 'organic' i.e. we haven't bought other businesses to produce the results we have attained. B) Over the past few days we added new IP bandwidth that, in total around Australia, means that Exetel now provides over 5 gbps of IP bandwidth to its Australian customers. C) Exetel owns all the real estate from which it operates in Australia and will shortly pay cash to double its floor space (we plan to hire around 50 additional people over the next year) by buying new premises in the Sydney CBD to cater for its planned Australian revenue/personnel growth in 2010. All of the six points above are true - at least to the best of my knowledge they are - and I could, with very little thought come up with several more. None of them change the FACT that Exetel IS a tiny data communications company and even if we succeed in our plans to double the size of the company over the next 14 months - nothing will have changed - we will still be tiny in comparison to Telstra.....and there is absolutely nothing wrong in using that, factually correct, word to describe a start up company after six years of its existence..... .....and that simple 'fact' of 'history' opens up a whole new range of "we are better than them" claims...."after six years of operation Exetel is larger in terms of revenue/customers/PoPs/bandwidth/profit than ANY of the ISPs (not carriers) that are currently bigger than us today. So for all the kind people - there you go - ours is bigger than theirs! PS: you know, those descriptions sound so impressive I might do a bit of work on them and make those claims on the Exetel web site so if you see any errors/anomalies/outright untruths in the above - please let me know.
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Why not! Talk up Exetel more! As long as it is honest and be taken seriously.
I have come across some rhetoric in certain fora that describe your company as not being a 'real' ISP ("VISP", "Reseller", 'you do not own any rusting metal at exchanges', 'not a competitor'). I definately could nominate a couple of "morons of the week".. I trust that you are aware and not caring. Comment (1)
I'm not aware that we aren't a real data communications company and I doubt whether the 110,000 or so Exetel customers are either - I'm certain the financial controllers of our suppliers don't think we are anything other than a real company that pays its bills more promptly than any one else they do business with.
If borrowing large amounts of money to install equipment in a small percentage of exchanges is the definition of an ISP then we don't do that....but does that mean those companies that do that are an "ISP" in terms of the people connected to their mortgaged DSLAM but are a VISP in the exchanges they don't have equipment? As Exetel seems to be able to offer internet connectivity at prices well below every other internet provider what difference does it make which bit of wire/fibre is owned by whom? And - as you allude to - who cares - certainly no-one we do business with. Comments (5)
The only trouble I have convincing people of Exetel being a "real" data provider comes about when I mention the pricing on offer.
Look at three of biggest competitors outside of the gang of 4 - Internode, iiNet and TPG. Internode and TPG have scant information regarding their high-end offerings on the web - no pricing info for Internode and the only reason I know TPG offer Ethernet and MPLS services is from their outage advisories. iiNet don't even offer such services at all. Only Internode publishes a network diagram of the three, and none of them publish MRTG graphs and/or current network capacities. Exetel, on the other hand shows what their network looks like and shows what the used capacity is at all times. Comments (2)
Chris,
Exetel's SHDSL and Ehternet pricing is commercially sensible and is set to a pretty rigid formula: 1) Installation pricing is simply a zero mark up on what the carrier charges Exetel. 2) Monthly pricing is the carrier's charge to us (inc GST) multiplied by 1.42 and then rounded up to the closest $50.00 amount with an additional charge of 50 cents per gb incuded in the download allowance.. We get no favours from the carriers and it is more than likely that other wholesale customers get better pricing than we do. Comments (5)
John,
Exactly my point! Exetel delivers better value than any other provider and is completely honest about their business processes. Your blog is a further example of this honesty. I'll be chasing my boss tomorrow to get our Exetel contract signed off and delivered to you - being in the middle of a financial audit and a security compliance audit has slowed down things for us. Comments (2)
Chris,
I think Lauren would be very grateful, if at all possible, to receive the contract by COB tomorrow - it is quite important to her personally. Comments (5)
The only type of statistic that you did not use above was number of customers, compared with the other ISPs.
Comments (2)
I'm not sure what relevance that particular number has but we make no secret of our customer numbers which are on our web site and 'tracked' on the news about Exetel.
Comments (5)
No more relevance than any of the other examples you gave as to how some businesses big note themselves.
I am agreeing with you John! The way I describe today's topic is the mantra "don't let the truth get in the way of a good story". Comments (2)
I see - it can't be relevant to anything though.
If the number of customers a company has is relevant then, in any marketplace and for any product, the company, or companies, with the most customers at any point in time is inferred as the best provider and no new entrant could ever enter any marketplace at any time - clearly that is not the case. The number of customers any company may have at any point in time demonstrates nothing of any specific relevance to any specific buyer. Comments (5)
You know those movies where you have pretty well worked out the plot within the first few minutes.... and just enjoy watching it unfold?
Your musings today were a typical example....... I just knew that sooner or later I'd read the words: "Ours is bigger than theirs!" Ah, the pleasure of it! H. Comment (1)
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